"I--I--I'm sorry!" he said weakly and blushing violently, "I'm sorry! I haven't got any more!" "Go home!" said Madame Smythe more genially, melting as she perceived the lad's embarrassment. "Go home and tickle your fat aunt! Tell her I told you!" Now even if they weren't hollyhocks, and he reflected bitterly that he had had no warrant for calling them hollyhocks, he wasn't going to be humiliated in this way. No! not even if they cost ninepence, let alone sixpence. No, he was going to buy a hollyhock, that is to say a chrysanthemum, for his mother, even if he died for it! How could he get sixpence? An appalling sum, on the further side even of avarice, but he was going to get it, and he already had three-ha'pence, anyhow! Another three weeks of comparative virtue swelled his total to threepence. Two separate ha'p'nies from his sister Dorah (who had been married for years and lived up in Longton), and he was worth fourpence. It was a point of honour not to receive the slightest subsidy from his mother towards her own gift. A ha'p'ny borrowed from Harry and three-ha'pence from the sale of an enormous number of Dandy Dave's chronicled exploits brought him the desired total. He marched boldly into Madame Smythe's establishment. "One chrysanthemum, please!" he demanded. "Come again, Johnny, eh? Got the money this time?" "Of course I have!" "Hoity-toity! All right, my lord!" "Here you are, ma'am!" he said, as he received the flower wrapped in tissue-paper and handed over his coins. "I say! I say! Mr. Rich! You've given me too much!" "But you said sixpence!" "Oh, that was weeks ago! They're cheaper now; they're only threepence!" He was sickened to think he had allowed the extra weeks to pass by thus unchrysanthemumed. "Give me another!" he demanded haughtily to convince Madame Smythe of his superiority to all consideration of money. The kitchen was crowded when Philip entered with his flowers and he slipped in unnoticed to join his mother in the scullery. "Mamma," he said shyly, "I've brought you a present all for yourself!" "Oh, Feivele, sweet child, how lovely! But the money, where didst thou get the money from?" "I've been saving up, Mamma. But never mind about that! You've got to take these flowers and wear them on your blouse!" "But I can't, Feivele! It's not right a married woman should wear flowers. Knowest thou not a Jewish woman must not wear her own hair? How then shall I wear flowers? And what will thy _tatte_ say? I can't, my child!" "Oh, Mamma I've been saving up for such a long time just to buy 'em for you. And now you don't want 'em. It's rotten, it's real rotten of you!"