"Now," said the wife of Mac-an-Ward, putting the money away, "you have paid me for my brother's can and you would be within your right in getting back your one-and-six from this bad man." She hitched her shawl contemptuously in the direction of Mac-an-Ward. Festus Clasby looked at the Son of the Bard with his velvety soft eyes. "Come, sir," said he, his tone a little nervous. "My money!" Mac-an-Ward hitched his trousers at the hips like a sailor, spat through his teeth, end eyed Festus Clasby through a slit in his half-closed eyes. There was a little patter of the feet on the road on the part of Mac-an-Ward, and Festus Clasby knew enough of the world and its ways to gather that these were scientific movements invented to throw a man in a struggle. He did not like the look of the Son of the Bard. "I will go home and leave him to God," he said. "Hand me the can and I will be shortening my road." At this moment three small boys, ragged, eager, their faces hard and weather-beaten, bounded up to the cart. They were breathless as they stood about the woman. "Mother!" they cried in chorus. "The man in the big shop! He is looking for a can." "What can?" cried the woman. The three young voices rose like a great cry: "The Can with the Diamond Notch." The woman caught her face in her hands as if some terrible thing had been said. She stared at the youngsters intently. "He wants one more to make up an order," they chanted. "He says he will pay--" The woman shrank from them with a cry. "How much?" she asked. "Half-a-crown!" The wife of Mac-an-Ward threw out her arms in a wild gesture of despair. "My God!" she cried. "I sold it. I wronged my sick brother." "Where did you sell it, mother?" "Here, to this handsome dark man." "How much did he pay?" "Eighteen-pence." The three youngsters raised their hard faces to the sky and raised a long howl, like beagles who had lost their quarry. Suddenly the woman's face brightened. She looked eagerly at Festus Clasby, then laid the hand of friendship, of appeal, on his arm. "I have it!" she cried, joyfully. "Have what?" asked Festus Clasby. "A way out of the trouble," she said. "A means of saving my brother from wrong. A way of bringing him his own for the Can with the Diamond Notch." "What way might that be?" asked Festus Clasby, his manner growing sceptical. "I will go to the shopman with it and get the half-crown. Having got the half-crown I will hurry back here--or you can come with me--and I will pay you back your one-and-six. In that way I will make another shilling and do you no wrong. Is that agreed?" "It is not agreed," said Festus Clasby. "Give me out the tin can. I am done with you now." "It's robbery!" cried the woman, her eyes full of a blazing sudden anger. "What is robbery?" asked Festus Clasby. "Doing me out of a shilling. Wronging my sick brother out of his earnings. A man worth hundreds, maybe thousands, to stand between a poor woman and a shilling. I am deceived in you."