"Why did he mind about giving it to us?" she said, fingering the notes. "He's not usually so-so—"
"I think it may be that he considers that you need it now, and that that makes it a delicate affair instead of a matter-of-fact one. When you gave him the tip you were just the well-off Sharpes who lived at The Franchise, and he would have turned over the proceeds to you with eclat. But now you are two women out on bail of?200 each in your personal recognizances and of a similar sum by one surety on behalf of you each; to say nothing of having the expenses of a counsel to come; and are therefore, I think, in Stan's mind not people that one can hand over money to easily."
"Well," said Mrs. Sharpe, "not all my tips have had a margin of a length-and-a-half on the right side. But I don't deny that I am very glad to see the percentage. It was very kind of the boy."
"Should we keep as much as ten per cent?" Marion asked doubtfully.
"That was the arrangement," Mrs. Sharpe said equably. "If it hadn't been for me he would be short by the amount of a bet on Bali Boogie at this moment. What is a Bali Boogie, by the way?"
"I am glad you came," Marion said, ignoring her mother's quest for education, "because something unexpected has happened. My watch has come back."
"You mean you've found it?"
"No, oh, no. She sent it back through the post. Look!"
She produced a small, very dirty, white cardboard box, which contained her watch with the blue enamel face and the wrapping that had been round the watch. The wrapping was a square of pinkish tissue paper with a circular stamp reading SUN VALLEY, TRANSVAAL, and had evidently started life embracing an orange. On a torn piece of paper was printed: I DON'T WANT NONE OF IT. The capital I was dotted like a small letter, after the fashion of illiterates.
"Why do you think she turned squeamish about it?" Marion wondered.