"There isn't a pound's worth of damage done," said Bertie.
Mr. Huffham caught him by the shoulder. "You let me finish out my say! I say there is a pound's worth of damage done; you can settle who it was among you afterwards; and what I say is this, either you pays me that pound before you leave this shop or I'll give the whole four of you such a flogging as you never had in all your days--I'll skin you alive!"
"It won't give me my money your flogging them," wailed Mrs. Huffham from behind the counter. "It's my money I wants! Here is all them bottles broken, and the case smashed--and it cost me two pound ten, and everything inside of it's a-ruined. It's my money I wants!"
"It's what I wants too; so which of you young gents is going to hand over that there sovereign?"
"Wheeler's got sevenpence," suggested Griffin.
"Sevenpence! what's sevenpence? It's a pound I want! Which of you is going to fork up that there pound?"
"There isn't a pound's worth of damage done," said Bertie; "nothing like. If you let us go, we'll get five shillings somehow, and bring it you in a week."
"In a week--five shillings! you catch me at it! Why, if I was once to let you outside that door, you'd put your fingers to your noses, and you'd call out, 'There goes old Huffham! yah--h--h!'" And he gave a very fair imitation of the greeting which the sight of him was apt to call forth from the very youths in front of him.
"If they was the young gentlemen they calls themselves they'd pay up, and not try to rob an old woman what's over seventy year."
"Now then, what's it going to be, your money or your life? That's the way to put it, because I'll only just let you off with your life, I'll tell you. Look sharp; I want my tea! What's it going to be, your money, or rather, my old grandmother's money over there, an old woman who finds it a pretty tight fit to keep herself out of the workhouse----"