He would have thrown up the sponge there and then, but for the thought of the straight-limbed child in Cardigan Street, for whom he wanted money--money to feed and clothe him for the world to admire.
One Saturday night, weary of waiting for the custom that never came, he closed the shop, and joined Ada, who was waiting on the footpath.

They sauntered along, Ada stopping every minute to look into the shop windows, while Jonah, gloomy and taciturn, turned his back on the lighted windows with impatience.

Presently Ada gave a cry of delight before the draper's.
"I say, Joe, that bonnet would suit the kid all to pieces.

An' look at the price! Only last week they was seven an' a kick." Jonah turned and looked at the window.

The bonnet, fluffy and absurd, was marked with a ticket bearing an enormous figure 4 in red ink, and beside it, faintly marked in pencil, the number 11.
"W'y don't yer say five bob, an' be done with it ?" said Jonah.
"But it ain't five bob; it's only four an' eleven," insisted Ada, annoyed at his stupidity.
"An' I suppose it 'ud be dear at five bob ?" sneered Jonah.
"Any fool could tell yer that," snapped Ada.
Jonah included the whole feminine world in a shrug of the shoulders, and turned impatiently on his heel.