"Why
did you ask five pounds?" said his wife. "_Do_ let me manage my
business my own way!" said Mr. Cave.
Mr. Cave had living with him a step-daughter and a step-son, and at supper
that night the transaction was re-discussed. None of them had a high
opinion of Mr. Cave's business methods, and this action seemed a
culminating folly.
"It's my opinion he's refused that crystal before," said the step-son, a
loose-limbed lout of eighteen.
"But _Five Pounds_!" said the step-daughter, an argumentative young
woman of six-and-twenty.
Mr. Cave's answers were wretched; he could only mumble weak assertions
that he knew his own business best. They drove him from his half-eaten
supper into the shop, to close it for the night, his ears aflame and tears
of vexation behind his spectacles. Why had he left the crystal in the
window so long? The folly of it! That was the trouble closest in his mind.
For a time he could see no way of evading sale.
After supper his step-daughter and step-son smartened themselves up and
went out and his wife retired upstairs to reflect upon the business
aspects of the crystal, over a little sugar and lemon and so forth in hot
water.
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