“Oh, no; it hasn’t been stolen—though sometimes I almost wish—but there, I oughtn’t to say that! No, the difficulty is that now I don’t know how to get rid of it! I never thought there was any harm in putting a little by, in case anything happened, till I saw in the papers that someone said” (lowering her voice) “that those who hoard gold are traitors to their country, and” (in a still more shocked tone) “actually helping Germany! I’d never had any such idea! Why, it’s the very last thing I should wish to do!
“So I started unhoarding at once and took a sovereign when next I went out to pay my little grocery bill. Miss Jarvis wasn’t in the shop herself—she wouldn’t have been so rude!—but her assistant said, ‘Well, I never! Doesn’t it seem odd to see a sovereign again! I can’t tell you when I saw one last. I didn’t know there was a solitary one left in the village! Wherever did you get it from, Miss Primkins?’
“Do you know, I went hot and cold all over; didn’t know what to do with myself, for fear she should guess I’d been hoarding and helping the country to be a traitor—no, I mean helping Germany to be—well—you understand. I just said quietly, with all the composure I could muster, ‘I chanced to have it in my purse,’ because, after all, it wasn’t her business, was it?”
“Then I thought I would change half a sovereign—that would be smaller and look less hoardingish—at the station, as I was going into Chepstow to get some more wool for those socks for Queen Mary. Would you believe it?—the station-master said—you know his jocular way—‘Why, Miss Primkins, what bank have you been robbing? I haven’t had my hand crossed with gold, I don’t know when! I’d like to keep it myself, for luck, only the Prime Minister would be down on me for hoarding, I suppose.’
“My knees shook so I could hardly get into the train. I decided I wouldn’t let anyone see another bit of it; yet actually, when I was in Mrs. Davis’s shop and getting out the money to pay for the wool, if I didn’t take out another half-sovereign in mistake for a sixpence!—I was so unnerved, I suppose—and she said, ‘Just fancy seeing a half-sovereign again! I thought they were all called in. Wherever did you light on that, Miss Primkins?’