“No!

Don't lose your temper. Leave this lad to me, ma'am; leave this lad to me.” Mr. Pumblechook then turned me towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said, —

“First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?”

I calculated the consequences of replying “Four Hundred Pound,” and finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could — which was somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my pence-table from “twelve pence make one shilling,” up to “forty pence make three and fourpence,” and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had done for me, “Now!

How much is forty-three pence?” To which I replied, after a long interval of reflection,