“Mr. Butterfield, you ’aven’t got a sovereign, ’ave you, as you could give me for twenty shillings in silver?”
“Well, that’s a rum ’un, Mr. Jim: generally it’s t’other way: you want the silver for the gold. Besides, we don’t take many sovereigns here—we ain’t like people in the High Street.”
“Mr. Butterfield, it’s jist this: we’ve ’ad overwork at the guvnor’s, and I’m a-goin’ to put a sovereign by safe come next Whitsuntide, when I’m a-goin’ to enjoy myself. I don’t get much enjoyment, Mr. Butterfield, but I mean to ’ave it then.”
“All right, Mr. Jim. I’ve only two sovereigns, and there they are. There’s a bran-new one, and there’s the other.”
“I don’t like bran-new nothin’s, Mr. Butterfield. I ain’t a Radical, I ain’t. Why, I’ve seed in my time an election last a week, and beer a-runnin’ down the gutters. It was the only chance a poor man ’ad. Wot sort of a chance ’as he got now? There’s nothin’ to be ’ad now unless yer sweat for it: that’s Radicalism, that is, and if I ’ad my way I’d upset the b---y Act, and all the lot of ’em. No, thank yer, Mr. Butterfield, I’ll ’ave the old sovereign; where did he come from now, I wonder.”
“Come from? Why, from your shop. Mr. Catchpole has just paid it me. You needn’t go a-turnin’ of it over and a-smellin’ at it, Mr. Jim; it’s as good as you are.”
“Good! I worn’t a-thinking’ about that. I wor jist a-looking at the picter of his blessed Majesty King George the Third, and the way he wore his wig. Kewrus, ain’t it? Now, somebody’s been and scratched ’im jist on the neck. Do yer see that ere cross?”
“You seem awful suspicious, Mr. Jim. Give it me back again. I don’t want you to have it.”
“Lord! suspicious! Ere’s your twenty shillin’s, Mr. Butterfield. I wish I’d a ’undred sovereigns as good as this.” And Mr. Jim departed.
Mr. Furze lost no time in communicating his discovery to his wife.