"I'm doing all I can not to be extravagant," she whimpered. "I don't buy
a thing for my back." Her short upper lip curled above her broken teeth
and trembled; she wept.
"But whatever," said Hugh softening his spirit, "I got ten soferens in
hand. Next quarter less you need and more you have. Less gass and
electric. You don't gobble food so ravishingly in warm weather. The more
I save."
Having exchanged the ten pounds for a ten-pound note, remorse seized
Hugh. "A son of a mule am I," he said. "Dangerous is paper as he blows.
If he blows! Bulky are soferens and shillings. If you lose two, you got
the remnants. But they are showy and tempting." He laid the note under
his pillow and slept, and he took it with him, secreted on his person,
to Kingsend Chapel, where every Sunday morning and evening he sang
hymns, bowed under prayer, and entertained his soul with sermons.
Just before departing on Monday he gave the note to Millie. "Keep him
securely," he counseled her. "Tell nobody we stock so much cash."
Millie put the note between the folds of a Paisley shawl, which was
precious to her inasmuch as it had been her mother's, and she wrapped a
blanket over the shawl and placed it in a cupboard.
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