The Story of the Amulet | Page 8

all at once. So hout you goes.'
'Oh! wait a minute,' said the wretched Cyril, feeling how foolishly yet
well-meaningly he had carried out the Psammead's instructions. 'Just
tell me one thing. What do you want for the mangy old monkey in the
third hutch from the end?'
The shopman only saw in this a new insult.
'Mangy young monkey yourself,' said he; 'get along with your
blooming cheek. Hout you goes!'
'Oh! don't be so cross,' said Jane, losing her head altogether, 'don't you
see he really DOES want to know THAT!'
'Ho! does 'e indeed,' sneered the merchant. Then he scratched his ear
suspiciously, for he was a sharp business man, and he knew the ring of
truth when he heard it. His hand was bandaged, and three minutes
before he would have been glad to sell the 'mangy old monkey' for ten
shillings. Now-- 'Ho! 'e does, does 'e,' he said, 'then two pun ten's my
price. He's not got his fellow that monkey ain't, nor yet his match, not
this side of the equator, which he comes from. And the only one ever
seen in London. Ought to be in the Zoo. Two pun ten, down on the nail,
or hout you goes!'
The children looked at each other--twenty-three shillings and fivepence
was all they had in the world, and it would have been merely three and
fivepence, but for the sovereign which Father had given to them
'between them' at parting. 'We've only twenty-three shillings and
fivepence,' said Cyril, rattling the money in his pocket.
'Twenty-three farthings and somebody's own cheek,' said the dealer, for

he did not believe that Cyril had so much money.
There was a miserable pause. Then Anthea remembered, and said--
'Oh! I WISH I had two pounds ten.'
'So do I, Miss, I'm sure,' said the man with bitter politeness; 'I wish you
'ad, I'm sure!'
Anthea's hand was on the counter, something seemed to slide under it.
She lifted it. There lay five bright half sovereigns.
'Why, I HAVE got it after all,' she said; 'here's the money, now let's
have the Sammy,... the monkey I mean.'
The dealer looked hard at the money, but he made haste to put it in his
pocket.
'I only hope you come by it honest,' he said, shrugging his shoulders.
He scratched his ear again.
'Well!' he said, 'I suppose I must let you have it, but it's worth thribble
the money, so it is--'
He slowly led the way out to the hutch--opened the door gingerly, and
made a sudden fierce grab at the Psammead, which the Psammead
acknowledged in one last long lingering bite.
'Here, take the brute,' said the shopman, squeezing the Psammead so
tight that he nearly choked it. 'It's bit me to the marrow, it have.'
The man's eyes opened as Anthea held out her arms.
'Don't blame me if it tears your face off its bones,' he said, and the
Psammead made a leap from his dirty horny hands, and Anthea caught
it in hers, which were not very clean, certainly, but at any rate were soft
and pink, and held it kindly and closely.
'But you can't take it home like that,' Cyril said, 'we shall have a crowd

after us,' and indeed two errand boys and a policeman had already
collected.
'I can't give you nothink only a paper-bag, like what we put the
tortoises in,' said the man grudgingly.
So the whole party went into the shop, and the shopman's eyes nearly
came out of his head when, having given Anthea the largest paper-bag
he could find, he saw her hold it open, and the Psammead carefully
creep into it. 'Well!' he said, 'if that there don't beat cockfighting! But
p'raps you've met the brute afore.'
'Yes,' said Cyril affably, 'he's an old friend of ours.'
'If I'd a known that,' the man rejoined, 'you shouldn't a had him under
twice the money. 'Owever,' he added, as the children disappeared, 'I
ain't done so bad, seeing as I only give five bob for the beast. But then
there's the bites to take into account!'
The children trembling in agitation and excitement, carried home the
Psammead, trembling in its paper-bag.
When they got it home, Anthea nursed it, and stroked it, and would
have cried over it, if she hadn't remembered how it hated to be wet.
When it recovered enough to speak, it said--
'Get me sand; silver sand from the oil and colour shop. And get me
plenty.'
They got the sand, and they put it and the Psammead in the round bath
together, and it rubbed itself, and rolled itself, and shook itself and
scraped itself, and scratched itself, and preened itself, till it felt clean
and comfy, and then it scrabbled a