servants out for the afternoon; they wore winter coats
open over summer dresses and hats that might be called autumnal,
seeing that they were an ingenious blending of the best that was left
from the headgear of both seasons.

"I shall get one of them woolly neck things, I shall," one said;
"they're quite as nice as fur and not so dear."

The other could not agree. "Don't care about them myself," she said;
"I must say I like a bit of sable."

"Can't get it under two and eleven," her companion rejoined; "and
those things are only a shilling three. Look at that pink one there;
it looks quite as good as feathers any day. I'm not so gone on sable
myself; you can't have it pink, and pink's my colour."

They moved on to another window; they, no more than the passers by,
noticed the old man who stood just at their elbow. When they had gone
he looked drearily in where they had looked. There were the woolly
things they had spoken of, short woven strips of loopy wool, to be
tied about the neck by the two-inch ribbons that dangled from the
ends. "Ostrich wool boas in all colours, price, one shilling and three
farthings," they were ticketed. He read the ticket mechanically. He
still held his two coins; he held them mechanically; had he thought
about it he would scarcely have troubled to do so, they were so
cruelly, so mockingly inadequate. He read the ticket again; it
obtruded itself upon him as trivial things do at unexpected times.
But now its meaning began to be impressed upon his brain--"one
shilling and three farthings"--that, then, was the interpretation of
the servant girl's "shilling three." He had a shilling and a penny--a
shilling and three farthings. He could buy one of those ostrich wool
boas--he would buy it--that pink one for Julia.

The Halgrave carrier made it a rule to receive his passengers' fares
at the beginning of the expedition; if they were coming back as well
as going with him they paid for the double journey at the outset in
the morning. Captain Polkington had so paid, and it was that fact,
coupled with the early arrival at the stables of his one purchase,
which induced the carrier to wait nearly half-an-hour for him. The
cart was packed, everything was ready, and the good man and the only
other passenger he was taking back were growing impatient, when the
Captain, carrying a small crushed paper parcel, appeared. He had lost
his way to the stables and had wandered hopelessly in his efforts to
find it.