We may both be devoured."
"You, perhaps," said the woman calmly; "not me."
"Why not you?" demanded Abbleway.
"It is the day of Saint Maria Kleopha, my name-day. She would not allow
me to be eaten by wolves on her day. Such a thing could not be thought
of. You, yes, but not me."
Abbleway changed the subject.
"It is only afternoon now; if we are to be left here till morning we
shall be starving."
"I have here some good eatables," said the woman tranquilly; "on my
festival day it is natural that I should have provision with me. I have
five good blood-sausages; in the town shops they cost twenty-five heller
each. Things are dear in the town shops."
"I will give you fifty heller apiece for a couple of them," said Abbleway
with some enthusiasm.
"In a railway accident things become very dear," said the woman; "these
blood-sausages are four kronen apiece."
"Four kronen!" exclaimed Abbleway; "four kronen for a blood-sausage!"
"You cannot get them any cheaper on this train," said the woman, with
relentless logic, "because there aren't any others to get. In Agram you
can buy them cheaper, and in Paradise no doubt they will be given to us
for nothing, but here they cost four kronen each. I have a small piece
of Emmenthaler cheese and a honey-cake and a piece of bread that I can
let you have. That will be another three kronen, eleven kronen in all.
There is a piece of ham, but that I cannot let you have on my name-day."
Abbleway wondered to himself what price she would have put on the ham,
and hurried to pay her the eleven kronen before her emergency tariff
expanded into a famine tariff.
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