Pretty, who
should have been Master Pretty surely, by rights, conveyed a piece of
butter to his own tongue, and tasted it loudly, looking very wise.
"'Best quality, one and a penny.' I see it ticketed up as I come by
Coman's." She turned round to the mistress of the shop. "I have always
dealt along of you for butter, ma'am," she said. "I haven't no wish to
leave you, but where I buy my butter--stand to reason I must buy the rest
of my grosheries."
"If Coman is down to that; you shall have it for the same sum;" Mrs. Day
promised. Her butter had already been "dropped" twice before, that day, in
order to keep pace with the passion for underselling of the new grocer,
who had, for the undoing of the widow and the orphan, opened a shop lower
down the street. Our poor retailer was selling her sugars, too, for less
than she gave for them.
"You must do so for a time," George Boult had informed her. "Coman can't
go on like this for ever. He'll get tired of the game soon--if I know
anything of trade and tradesmen--then you can stick it on to your goods
again."
While the subject of the butter was being debated, the child Franky came
in from afternoon school. He was day-boarder at a cheap academy to which
other small tradesmen's sons were sent--a school very inferior to that to
which Bernard had gone.
Pages:
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210