"Yes," Mr. Gillat said; "not a great deal, of course, but it would be a help—it might pay the butcher's bill. It's a great thing to have the butcher's bill paid; I've heard my landlady say so; it gives a standing with the other tradespeople, and that's what you want—she often says so."
"You mean you think of selling them for us?" Julia asked, fixing her keen eyes on Johnny, so that he felt very guilty, and as if he ought to excuse himself. But before he could do it she had swept his belongings together. "You won't do anything of the kind," she said.
"Why not?"
"Because we won't have it. Pack them up."
"Oh, but," Johnny protested, "it would be a little help, it would indeed; they would fetch something, the glasses are good ones, though a bit old-fashioned, and the watch—"
"I don't care, I won't have it," and Julia took the matter into her own hands, and began with a flushed face to re-pack the things herself.
"Is it that you think I can't spare them?" Gillat asked, still bewildered. "I can—what an idea," he laughed. "What do I want with field-glasses, now? And as to a watch, my time's nothing to me!"
"No, I dare say not," Julia said, but she tied the parcel firmly, then she gave it to him. "Take it away," she said, "and don't try to sell a thing."
She opened the door as she spoke, and he, accepting it as a hint of dismissal, meekly followed her from the room. When they had reached the hall above he ventured on a last protest. "Why may I not sell anything?" he asked.
"Because we have not quite come to that," she said, with a ring of bitterness in her voice: "We have come pretty low, I know, with our dodges and our shifts, but we haven't quite come to depriving you. Johnny"—and she stretched out a hand to him, a thing which was rare, for no one thought it necessary to shake hands with Mr. Gillat—"it's very good of you to offer; I'm grateful to you; I'm awfully glad you did it; you made me ashamed."