'I'll 'ave two packets o' woodbines, miss,' Joshua had to reply, quite forgetting that he did not smoke cigarettes, but unable to ignore the hint. He put down twopence.--'Wot abart you, Pincher?'
'A penn'orth of bull's-eyes or almond rock?' suggested the girl, with a malicious twinkle in her eyes. 'Or perhaps you'd fancy some jujubes or acid drops, fresh in to-day?'
'Thank you, miss, I don't fancy sweets,' the ordinary seaman returned, painfully aware that he was being made fun of. 'I'll 'ave one o' them there packets o' Egyptian fags. The sixpenny ones.'
'We generally call them cigarettes,' Emmeline remarked.
'Lor,' Billings ejaculated, 'we ain't 'arf goin' a bu'st!'
'Let the boy have what he wants, mister,' retorted Miss Figgins tartly, her business instinct uppermost, and a little anxious lest Pincher should change his mind and choose something cheaper. 'They're very good cigarettes, I'm sure, and excellent value for the money. Don't know what he wants to go smoking for, though,' she added sweetly, gazing at Pincher with an innocent smile. 'I'm sure sweets are more in his line.'
Joshua laughed, but Martin felt he had never been so insulted in his life. 'Boy,' indeed! She had called him a boy, and had offered him sweets!
More prospective customers arrived; and, paying for their purchases, the two bluejackets started to leave the establishment, when Billings, remembering something rather important, turned back. 'Say, miss,' he queried in an anxious, confidential whisper in the young lady's ear, 'did yer ma say anythin' abart comin' ter the pictures along o' me ter-night?'
Emmeline paused in the act of weighing out half-an-ounce of shag tobacco and laughed merrily. 'Go on with you!' she exclaimed roguishly. 'You're a proper caution, Mister Billings!'
'I'm not my mother's keeper. She said nothing to me.'
'Sure?' queried the lovesick one, rather disappointed.
The girl winked twice and pointed to the door. 'Hop it!' she giggled. 'Don't come worrying round me when I'm busy with customers. Take your Mister--er--Martin with you; and if I were you I should buy him'--she sank her voice to a whisper and glanced in Pincher's direction--'a nice rattle! Ta-ta; see you both later.'
'Wot did she say yer wus ter buy me?' Martin wanted to know when they got outside.