' Well, it seemed a
silly explanation, but he talked as if he had been weaned by an
automatic machine, and I was sawney enough to listen to him. I
dropped in what I thought was another penny. I have just discovered
it was a two-shilling piece. The fool was right to a certain
extent; I have got something out. I have got this."
He held it towards me; I looked at it. It was a packet of Everton
toffee.
"Two and a penny," he remarked, bitterly. "I'll sell it for a third
of what it cost me."
"You have put your money into the wrong machine," I suggested.
"Well, I know that!" he answered, a little crossly, as it seemed to
me--he was not a nice man: had there been any one else to talk to I
should have left him. "It isn't losing the money I mind so much;
it's getting this damn thing, that annoys me. If I could find that
idiot Id ram it down his throat."
We walked to the end of the platform, side by side, in silence.
"There are people like that," he broke out, as we turned, "people
who will go about, giving advice. I'll be getting six months over
one of them, I'm always afraid. I remember a pony I had once." (I
judged the man to be a small farmer; he talked in a wurzelly tone.
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