The Switzer shook his head.
“Nay,” he said. “The snuff you may have, but the box was the gift of a friend, and I am loath to part with it. Besides, the box is of little real value.”
“You may have the head of the catfish for the snuff, and the whole catfish for the box,” said La Certe, with the firmness of a man who has irrevocably made up his mind—for there are none so firm of purpose as the weak and vacillating when they know they have got the whip-hand of any one! “And, behold! I will be liberal,” he added. “You shall have another goldeye into the bargain—six goldeyes for the five shillings and a whole catfish for the box and snuff—voilà!” The poor Switzer still hesitated.
“It is a great deal to give for so little,” he said.
“That may be true,” said the other, “but I would not see my family starve for the satisfaction of carrying a snuff-box and five shillings in my pocket.”
This politic reference to the starving family decided the matter; the poor Switzer emptied his pockets with a sigh, received the fish, and went on his way, leaving La Certe and Slowfoot to return to their wigwam highly pleased with their bargain. As must have been noted by the reader long ere now, this like-minded couple did not possess a conscience between them—at least, if they did, it must at that time have been a singularly shrunken and mummified one, which they had managed to keep hidden away in some dark and exceedingly un-get-at-able chamber of the soul.
Commercially speaking, however, they had some ground for satisfaction; for at that time the ordinary price of a catfish, which is a little larger than a haddock, was threepence.
Awakening the juvenile La Certe to the blissful realisation that a good “square” meal was pending, Slowfoot ordered it to fill and light the pipe for the father, while she set about preparing the fish for supper.