"Let me pay you," said Greeba, turning to Asher, and Asher was for holding out his hand, but Jacob, coming behind him, tugged at his coat, and so he drew back and said,
"Aw, no, child, no; I couldn't touch it for my life."
"Then you," said Greeba to Thurstan, and Thurstan looked as hungry as a hungry gull at the bait that was offered him, but just then Jacob was coughing most lamentably. So with a wry face, that was all colors at once, Thurstan answered, "Aw, Greeba, woman, do you really think a poor man has got no feelings? Don't press it, woman. You'll hurt me."
Recking nothing of these refusals Greeba tried each of the others in turn, and getting the same answer from all, she wheeled about, saying, "Very well, be it so," and quickly locked the money in the drawer of a cabinet. This done, she said sharply, "Now, you can go."
"Go?" they cried, looking up from their seats in bewilderment.
"Yes," she said, "before my husband returns."
"Before he returns?" said Jacob. "Why, Greeba, we wish to see him."
"You had better not wait," said Greeba. "He might remember what you appear to forget."
"Why," said Jacob, with every accent of incredulity, "and isn't he our brother, so to say, brought up in the house of our own father?"
"And he knows what you did for our poor father, who wouldn't lie shipwrecked now but for your heartless cruelties," said Greeba.