Then he collapsed into a chair, which
creaked under him, and wiped his eyes.
"Oh dear!" he said, "oh dear! the five pounds!"
Mike was not always abreast of the rustic idea of humour, and
now he felt particularly fogged. For the life of him he could
not see what there was to amuse any one so much in the fact that
a person who owed five pounds was ready to pay it back. It was an
occasion for rejoicing, perhaps, but rather for a solemn, thankful,
eyes-raised-to-heaven kind of rejoicing.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Five pounds!"
"You might tell us the joke."
Mr. Barley opened the letter, read it, and had another attack; when
this was finished he handed the letter to Mike, who was waiting
patiently by, hoping for light, and requested him to read it.
"Dear, dear!" chuckled Mr. Barley, "five pounds! They may teach you
young gentlemen to talk Latin and Greek and what not at your school,
but it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you how many beans make
five; it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you to come in when it
rained, it 'ud do----"
Mike was reading the letter.
"DEAR MR. BARLEY," it ran.--"I send the L5, which I could not get
before. I hope it is in time, because I don't want you to write to
the headmaster. I am sorry Jane and John ate your wife's hat and
the chicken and broke the vase.
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