"You gottum more'n a dozen," he cried.
"What a lie!" cried Chook, with a stare of outraged virtue.
"I'll push yer face in if yer say I pinched yer rotten stuff," and he
emptied the rhubarb out of the bag, dexterously kicking the thirteenth
bunch under the stall.
"Now are yez satisfied?" he cried, and began counting the bunches into
the bag two by two. As the Chinaman watched sharply, he stooped to
move a cabbage that he was standing on, and instantly Chook whipped in
two bunches without counting.
"Twelve," said Chook, with a look of indignation. "I 'ope ye're
satisfied: I am."
When the bags were full, Pinkey was blue with the cold, and the dawn
had broken, dull and grey, beneath the pitiless fall of rain. It was
no use waiting for such rain to stop, and they quarrelled again because
Chook insisted that she should wait in the markets till he went home
with one chaff-bag and came back for the other. Each bag, bulging with
vegetables, was nearly the size of Pinkey, but the expert in moving
furniture was not to be dismayed by that. She ended the dispute by
seizing a bag and trudging out into the rain, bent double beneath the
load, leaving Chook to curse and follow.
Halfway through breakfast Pinkey caught Chook's eye fixed on her in a
peculiar manner.
"Wot are yez thinkin' about?" she asked, with a smile.
"Well, if yer want ter know, I'm thinkin' wot a fool I was to marry
yer," said Chook, bitterly.
A cold wave swept over Pinkey. It flashed through her mind that he was
tired of her; that he thought she wasn't strong enough to do her share
of the work. Well, she could take poison or throw herself into the
harbour.
"Ah!" she said, cold as a stone. "Anythin' else?"
"I mean," said Chook, stumbling for words, "I ought to 'ave 'ad more
sense than ter drag yez out of a good 'ome ter come 'ere an' work like
a bus 'orse."
"Is that all?" inquired Pinkey.
"Yes; wot did yer think?" said Chook, miserably. "It fair gives me the
pip ter see yer 'umpin' a sack round the stalls, when I wanted ter make
yer 'appy an' comfortable."
Pinkey took a long breath of relief. She needn't drown herself, then,
he wasn't tired of her.
"An' who told yer I wasn't 'appy an' comfortable?" she inquired,
"'cause yer can go an' tell 'em it's only a rumour. An' while ye're
about it, yous can tell 'em I've got a good 'ome, a good 'usband, an'
everythin' I want." Here she looked round the dingy room as if daring
it to contradict her. "An' as fer the good 'ome I came from, I wasn't
wanted there, an' was 'arf starved; an' now the butcher picks the best
joint an' if I lift me finger, a big 'ulkin' feller falls over 'imself
ter run an' do wot I want."
Chook listened without a smile. Then his lips twitched and his eyes
turned misty. Pinkey ran at him, crying, "Yer silly juggins, if I've
got yous, I've got all I want." She hung round his neck, crying for
pleasure, and Mrs Higgs knocked on the counter till she was tired
before she got her potatoes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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