'A good many.'
'Why what's this round box? Heart alive, John, it's a wedding-
cake!'
'Leave a woman alone to find out that,' said John, admiringly.
'Now a man would never have thought of it. Whereas, it's my belief
that if you was to pack a wedding-cake up in a tea-chest, or a
turn-up bedstead, or a pickled salmon keg, or any unlikely thing, a
woman would be sure to find it out directly. Yes; I called for it
at the pastry-cook's.'
'And it weighs I don't know what--whole hundredweights!' cried Dot,
making a great demonstration of trying to lift it.
'Whose is it, John? Where is it going?'
'Read the writing on the other side,' said John.
'Why, John! My Goodness, John!'
'Ah! who'd have thought it!' John returned.
'You never mean to say,' pursued Dot, sitting on the floor and
shaking her head at him, 'that it's Gruff and Tackleton the
toymaker!'
John nodded.
Mrs. Peerybingle nodded also, fifty times at least. Not in assent-
-in dumb and pitying amazement; screwing up her lips the while with
all their little force (they were never made for screwing up; I am
clear of that), and looking the good Carrier through and through,
in her abstraction.
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