We offered him a sixpence in exchange; he looked insulted, and evidently considered the proposal as tantamount to our calling him a fool.

We made it a shilling, then half-a-crown--he seemed only bored by our persistence.
"I don't think you'll ever see this half-sovereign again, Hollis," said Gadbut, laughing.

We all, with the exception of young Hollis, thought the affair a very good joke.

He, on the contrary, seemed annoyed, and, taking the dog from Gadbut, made an attempt to pull the coin out of its mouth.
Tiny, true to his life-long principle of never parting if he could possibly help it, held on like grim death, until, feeling that his little earnings were slowly but surely going from him, he made one final desperate snatch, and swallowed the money.

It stuck in his throat, and he began to choke.
Then we became seriously alarmed for the dog.