`The last one is soaking,' he replied. `You needn't look, I've not forgotten it.'
`Oh, that pot man!' she said, closing the oven door. `You know what a wretch I've said he was? Well, I don't think he's quite so bad.'
`Don't you?'
The boy was attentive to her. She took off her little black bonnet.
`No. I think he can't make any money--well, it's everybody's cry alike nowadays--and it makes him disagreeable.'
`It would me,' said Paul.
`Well, one can't wonder at it. And he let me have--how much do you think he let me have this for?'
She took the dish out of its rag of newspaper, and stood looking on it with joy.
`Show me!' said Paul.
The two stood together gloating over the dish.
`I love cornflowers on things,' said Paul.
`Yes, and I thought of the teapot you bought me--'
`One and three,' said Paul.
`Fivepence!'
`It's not enough, mother.'
`No. Do you know, I fairly sneaked off with it. But I'd been extravagant, I couldn't afford any more. And he needn't have let me have it if he hadn't wanted to.'
`No, he needn't, need he,' said Paul, and the two comforted each other from the fear of having robbed the pot man.
`We c'n have stewed fruit in it,' said Paul.
`Or custard, or a jelly,' said his mother.
`Or radishes and lettuce,' said he.
`Don't forget that bread,' she said, her voice bright with glee.
Paul looked in the oven; tapped the loaf on the base.
`It's done,' he said, giving it to her.
She tapped it also.
`Yes,' she replied, going to unpack her bag. `Oh, and I'm a wicked, extravagant woman. I know I s'll come to want.'
He hopped to her side eagerly, to see her latest extravagance. She unfolded another lump of newspaper and disclosed some roots of pansies and of crimson daisies.
`Four penn'orth!' she moaned.