'No, no,' he said to Curdie; 'don't you pay any such sum. A little
pane like that cost only a quarter.'
'Well, to be certain,' said Curdie, 'I'll give a half.' For he
doubted the baker as well as the barber. 'Perhaps one day, if he
finds he has asked too much, he will bring me the difference.'
'Ha! ha!' laughed the barber. 'A fool and his money are soon
parted.'
But as he took the coin from Curdie's hand he grasped it in
affected reconciliation and real satisfaction. In Curdie's, his
was the cold smooth leathery palm of a monkey. He looked up,
almost expecting to see him pop the money in his cheek; but he had
not yet got so far as that, though he was well on the road to it:
then he would have no other pocket.
'I'm glad that stone is gone, anyhow,' said the baker. 'It was the
bane of my life. I had no idea how easy it was to remove it. Give
me your pickaxes young miner, and I will show you how a baker can
make the stones fly.'
He caught the tool out of Curdie's hand, and flew at one of the
foundation stones of the gateway. But he jarred his arm terribly,
scarcely chipped the stone, dropped the mattock with a cry of pain,
and ran into his own shop. Curdie picked up his implement, and,
looking after the baker, saw bread in the window, and followed him
in. But the baker, ashamed of himself, and thinking he was coming
to laugh at him, popped out of the back door, and when Curdie
entered, the baker's wife came from the bakehouse to serve him.
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