"Oh, is it? Well, it's your ma that tells me what to make and pays me
for it, not you."

This was a novel idea to William.

He thought deeply.

"Look here!" he said at last, "if I gave you,"--he paused for effect,
then brought out the startling offer--"sixpence, would you make a
cream blanc-mange?"

"I'd want to see your sixpence first," said cook, with a wink at Emma.

William retired upstairs to his bedroom and counted out his
money--twopence was all he possessed. He had expended the enormous sum
of a shilling the day before on a grass snake. It had died in the
night. He _must_ get a cream blanc-mange somehow. His reputation for
omnipotence in the eyes of the little girl next door--a reputation
very dear to him--depended on it. And if cook would do it for sixpence,
he must find sixpence. By fair means or foul it must be done. He'd tried
fair means, and there only remained foul. He went softly downstairs to
the dining-room, where, upon the mantel-piece, reposed the missionary-box.
He'd tell someone next day, or put it back, or something. Anyway, people
did worse things than that in the pictures. With a knife from the table
he extracted the contents--three-halfpence! He glared at it balefully.

"Three-halfpence!" he said aloud in righteous indignation. "This
supposed to be a Christian house, and three-halfpence is all they can
give to the poor heathen. They can spend pounds and pounds on,"--he
glanced round the room and saw a pyramid of pears on the