"
"Yes, she will. Suppose you buy a collar for him--you can get one
for five shillings."
They found a saddler's and chose the dog-collar which came to four
shillings; and for eighteenpence the shopman agreed to have
"_Honoria from Taffy_," engraved on it within an hour. Humility's
present was chosen with surprising ease--a large, framed photograph
of the Bishop of Exeter; price, six shillings.
"I don't suppose," objected George, "your mother cares much for the
Bishop of Exeter."
"Oh, yes, she does," said Taffy; "he's coming to confirm us next
spring. Besides," he added, with one of those flashes of wisdom
which surely he derived from her, "mother won't care what it is, so
long as she's remembered. And it costs more than the collar."
This left him with eight-and-sixpence; and for three-and-sixpence he
bought a work-box for his grandmother, with a view of Plymouth Hoe on
the lid. But now came the crux. What should he get for his father?
"It must be a book," George suggested.
"But what kind of a book? He has so many."
"Something in Latin."
The bookseller's window was filled with yellow-backed novels and
toy-books, which obviously would not do. So they marched in and
demanded a book suitable for a clergyman who had a good many books
already--"a middle-aged clergyman," George added.
"You can't go far wrong with this," suggested the bookseller,
producing Crockford's "Clerical Directory" for the current year.
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