he won't like
it."

"Let her dis.," said Priscilla. "Now what do you want to drink? I always
have lemon flavoured soda. It's less sticky than regular lemonade. Stone
ginger beer is better than either, of course, but Brannigan doesn't keep
it, I can't imagine why not."

"If we're going to stay out," said Frank, "I'll have beer, lager for
choice."

"Right. Lager is twopence. Lemon flavoured soda twopence if we bring
back the bottles. That will leave fourpence for biscuits which ought to
be enough."

Fourpence worth of biscuits seemed to Frank an insufficient supply of
food for two people who are to be on the sea for the whole day. He
saw, besides, an opportunity of asserting once for all his position of
superiority. He made up his mind to tip Priscilla. He fumbled in his
pocket for a coin.

"You get quite a lot of biscuits for fourpence," said Priscilla, "if you
go in for plain arrowroot. Of course they're rather dull, but then you
get very few of the better sorts. Take macaroons, for instance. They're
nearly a halfpenny each in Brannigan's. Sheer robbery, I call it."

Frank, determined to do the thing handsomely if he did it at all, passed
half a crown to Priscilla over the back of the bath chair.

"My dear child," he said, "buy macaroons by all means if you like them.
Buy as many as you want."

Priscilla received the half-crown without any appearance of shame.

"If you're prepared to lash out money in that way," she said, "we may as
well have a tongue. Brannigan has small ones at one and sixpence. Brawn
of course is cheaper, but then if you have brawn you want a tin-opener.
The tongues are in glass jars which you can break with a stone or a
rowlock. The lids are supposed to come off quite easily if you jab a
knife through them, but they don't really. All that happens is a sort of
fizz of air and the lid sticks on as tight as ever. Things hardly ever
do what they're supposed to according to science, which makes me think
that science is rather rot, though, of course, it may have its uses only
that I don't know them."

Priscilla wheeled the bath-chair for some distance along the road
without speaking. Then she asked another question.

"Which would you rather have, the tongue or a tin of Californian
peaches. They're one and sixpence too, so we can't have both, for
it would be a pity to miss the chance of one and fourpence worth of
macaroons. I don't remember ever having so many at one time before.
Though of c