SHEBA.
Aunt--Salome has something to say to you.
SALOME.
No, it"s Sheba.
GEORGIANA.
Why, you"re shivering all over. [_Catching hold of SHEBA._] Hallo, little "un!
SHEBA.
Aunt--dear Aunt Georgiana--we heard you say something about a thousand pounds.
GEORGIANA.
You"ve been listening?
SHEBA.
No--we only merely heard. And, oh, Aunt, a thousand pounds is such a lot, and we poor girls want such a little.
GEORGIANA.
Money?
SHEBA.
Yes. Salome has rather got into debt.
GEORGIANA.
My gracious!
SALOME.
I haven"t, any more than you have, Sheba.
SHEBA.
Well, I"m in debt too, but I only meant to beg for Salome; but now I ask for both of us. Oh, Aunt Tidman, papa has told us that you have known troubles.
GEORGIANA.
So I have--heaps of them.
SHEBA.
Oh, I"m so glad. Because Salome and I are weary fragments too--we"re everything awful but chastened widows. We owe forty pounds unknown to Pa!
SALOME.
Forty pounds, nineteen.
GEORGIANA.
Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourselves, you girls!
SHEBA.
We are!
SALOME.
We are!
GEORGIANA.
To cry and go on like this about forty pounds!
SHEBA.
But we"ve only got fifteen and threepence of our own in the world!
And, oh, Aunt, you know something about the Races, don"t you?
GEORGIANA.
Eh?
SHEBA.
If you do, help two poor creatures to win forty pounds, nineteen. Aunt Georgiana, what"s "Dandy d.i.c.k" you were talking to that gentleman about?
GEORGIANA.
Child! Dandy d.i.c.k"s a horse.
SHEBA.
We thought so. Then let Dandy d.i.c.k win _us_ some money.
GEORGIANA.
No, no! I won"t hear of it!
SHEBA.
Oh, do, do!