Page 75 - An Australian Lassie

She sat down on the kerbstone to count her money, putting her feet in the dry gutter a la maniere born. She
made first of all a stack of her half-pennies, and then of her pennies. There were nine half-pennies, three
pennies, a threepenny bit and a sixpence. The grand total she found was one and fourpence halfpenny. More
than even John had started out with.

While she was thus like a small miser counting her money, a hand swooped suddenly down upon the heap of
coppers and swept them away. Betty looked up to scream, but it was only John. And he warned her solemnly
how easily such a dreadful theft could be committed.

"T wish to goodness the shops would open," he said discontentedly. "T'm beginning to want some breakfast, T
can tell you."

Betty unfolded her hands and displayed her wealth of coin. "A shilling in an hour," she said, and John's look
of surprised unbelief delighted her.

"You picked it up!" he said.

"Oh, T didn't!" cried Betty. "People gave it to me just for singing! A shilling an hour! T forget how much
Madam S--- makes in an hour. T think its more than a pound!"

"Don't you want your breakfast?" asked John.

"Let's count how many hours in a day," said Betty, twisting about to see a clock, the high post office clock
they were walking under now, and found it. "T want to make my fortune quickly and go home and surprise
them. How much money is in a fortune, John?"

John considered deeply for a minute and then gave it as his idea that five hundred pounds was usually called a
fortune.

[Tllustration: "The child's song touched and stirred that latent sentimentality of theirs."]

"That'll take a good bit of making," said Betty.

"Well, you didn't expect to make it in a day did you?" asked John roughly.

"Oh, no," said Betty cheerfully, "T was only wondering how many hours there are in a day--at a shilling an
hour."

She began to count slowly on the fingers of one hand all the hours until seven o'clock at night, the first hour to
be from eight till nine o'clock in the morning.

"Eleven hours!" she said. "That's eleven shillings! Eleven shillings, John. Oh, and one hour gone, that's
twelve! Twelve shillings a day, just fancy, John! Oh, T'll soon be rich."

"But you couldn't sing every hour in the day," said sensible John, although his eyes plainly expressed
admiration for her brilliant career. "Why, you'd get hoarse!"

"T only sang twice in this hour," said Betty; "the rest of the time T've just been counting my money and looking
round me."

"But you mightn't make a shilling every hour," said John.