“It’s what you want,” he said brutally. “Muzzling.” “Afraid of _my_ bite, too?” asked Jinny, and turning towards the interior shelf that held the smaller parcels, she began to sing softly to herself: “_A dashing young lad from Buckingham._” He had been expecting “Canada” at the end, and felt somehow disappointed at its absence. “But when I gave the order,” he rejoined notwithstanding, “I didn’t know that the Bradmarsh Carrier was a girl.” “That didn’t prevent you using her when you did know,” she said quietly. “When have I used her?” he cried hotly. “Well, what about this?” She produced from the shelf in the cart a long parcel half enclosed by a string in broken, dirty paper, within which showed a layer of grimy straw. “But what is it?” “That’s not my business.” She tendered it downwards. “I never ordered this.” “Hadn’t you better open it?” she asked with a twinkle. He dumped down the cages violently, to the alarm of the ferrets, and tore it open, only to shudder back before the clammy-looking coils. “An adder as well?” said Jinny. “You going to open a menagerie?” “It’s dead,” he said. “Did you want a live one?” “I didn’t want one at all—I never ordered it.” “Why, Uncle Lilliwhyte told me he sold it to you for fourpence and you gave him twopence extra to kill it.” “I beg your pardon—he misunderstood.” It was his second apology. “But what a dirty way to deliver it.” “Did you expect me to nurse a viper in my bosom?” Again this indelicate speech, hardly atoned for by its wit. “The old ragamuffin!” he muttered furiously. “How did the idiot know it was me?” “Fellow-feeling, I suppose,” said Jinny. “Now you’re saucy again. You must have told him it was me.” “Right for once. Honest uncle was upset at your forgetting to tell him where to send your purchase. I was milking my goats and saw you hanging about.” Again he flushed uneasily. “And how much do I owe you?” he asked hurriedly. “Twopence for the viper, being only a short way. The Deacon says he prefers to pay the freightage on the ferrets, and to collect it from you himself.” He put down the straw-entangled snake on top of one of the cages, and pulled out a coin. “Have you got change for sixpence?” “Not unless I loose Nip.” She fumbled with one hand in her pocket. He glowered. “Oh, next time will do,” he said angrily. “Oh, then, there _is_ to be a next time!” “Not so far as I am concerned.” “Sure you don’t want any more wild animals?” “No,” he shouted. “Don’t be so fierce. The drumstick is found, you will be glad to hear.” He grunted. “And the show is doing big business, Mr. Flippance tells me. He was so set up he gave me a pair of new gloves.” “That old braggart! What business had he to give you gloves?” “Didn’t I lose one through his drumstick?” “But then ’tis me ought to pay for them,” he protested. “You? What nonsense! Why?” “It was on my account you lost the glove—through trying to get a bite.” She smiled. “You talk as if I were an angler.”