Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/195

 When he called on Mr. Aaron Weech a few hours later, that talented tradesman, with liberal gestures, told out shillings singly in his hand, pausing after each as though that were the last. But Josh held his hand persistently open till Mr. Weech having released the fifth shilling, stopped altogether, scandalized at such rapacity. But still Josh was not satisfied, and as he was not quite so easy a customer to manage as the boys who commonly fenced at the shop, Mr. Weech compromised, in the end, by throwing in a cheap clock. It had been in hand for a long time; and Josh was fain to take it, since he could get no more. And thus it was that Dicky, coming in at about five o'clock, was astonished to see on the mantelpiece, amid the greasy ruins of many candle-ends, the clock that had belonged to the Ropers four years before.