Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/176

Rh I simply didn't dare to tell her it wasn't going to be simply us. What would she have said if we'd told her we meant to have Pigs?—I say, we must drop calling them that or we shall do it when they're here. How many could we have? Eight at least, and Mr. Dix said this morning we ought to charge three guineas a week. Three times eight is twenty-four—twenty-five with the guineas shillings. How much a year is that?"

"Oh, more than a thousand pounds, I should think. But then think of the maids' wages and the cook's wages and all the things to eat—and . . ."

"Well, that's all, isn't it?"

"Oh, I could think of heaps of other things—oh yes, having the piano tuned; and laundry; and gas; and there's water rates, I suppose, and things like that. And then all the rooms wouldn't always be full."

"Mr. Dix said we ought to make enough out of the house and garden to keep us comfortably." "It's my belief it's going to be a very tight fit. And do you see us watching the marmalade and counting the lumps of sugar and locking up the tea? Because I don't. There's one thing: Mr. Dix was saying we shall have all our vegetables and fruit free—I mean we shan't have to buy them—and we must make our own jam. Look here, Jane, we've sometimes thought the shop rather a fag. It's nothing to what this is going to be. And don't you see we shall have to get a girl for the shop? Another expense."

"Glorious!" said Jane. "I hadn't thought of that. We shall get out of the shop, anyhow. Doing one thing all day and every day and wearing nothing but Indian pinafores—I don't know how girls stand it in factories. Selling flowers is pretty work, after all. Suppose we worked in a rubber factory. Mr. Dix was saying that you eat, drink, smell, and breathe rubber and naphtha. You can't get away from it, and when you go home you take it home with you. Oh, we 're very lucky, Luce. First the shop—and then the moment we're tired of that we find it's our positive duty to get