imself to and fro on the malachite bench. "Glory without the L!"

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote A: "_Maskee_," in Pigeon-English, means "_without_."]

KNOT VII.

PETTY CASH.

"Base is the slave that pays."

"Aunt Mattie!"

"My child?"

"_Would_ you mind writing it down at once? I shall be quite _certain_ to
forget it if you don't!"

"My dear, we really must wait till the cab stops. How can I possibly
write anything in the midst of all this jolting?"

"But _really_ I shall be forgetting it!"

Clara's voice took the plaintive tone that her aunt never knew how to
resist, and with a sigh the old lady drew forth her ivory tablets and
prepared to record the amount that Clara had just spent at the
confectioner's shop. Her expenditure was always made out of her aunt's
purse, but the poor girl knew, by bitter experience, that sooner or
later "Mad Mathesis" would expect an exact account of every penny that
had gone, and she waited, with ill-concealed impatience, while the old
lady turned the tablets over and over, till she had found the one headed
"PETTY CASH."

"Here's the place," she said at last, "and here we have yesterday's
luncheon duly entered. _One glass lemonade_ (Why can't you drink water,
like me?) _three sandwiches_ (They never put in half mustard enough. I
told the young woman so, to her face; and she tossed her head--like her
impudence!) _and seven biscuits_. _Total one-and-two-pence._ Well, now
for to-day's?"

"One glass of lemonade----" Clara was beginning to say, when suddenly
the cab drew up, and a courteous railway-porter was handing out the
bewildered girl before she had had time to finish her sentence.

Her aunt pocketed the tablets instantly. "Business first," she said:
"petty cash--which is a form of pleasure, whatever _you_ may
think--afterwards." And she proceeded to pay the driver, and to give
voluminous orders about the luggage, quite deaf to the entreaties of her
unhappy niece that she would enter the rest of the luncheon account.

"My dear, you really must cultivate a more capacious mind!" was all the
consolation she vouchsafed to the poor girl. "Are not the tablets of
your memory wide enough to contain the record of one single luncheon?"

"Not wide enough! Not half wide enough!" was the passionate reply.

The words came in aptly enough, but the voice was not that of Clara, and
both ladies turned in some surprise to see who it was that had so
suddenly struck into their conversa