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‘Johnny, hurry, hurry! It’s Mr. Hancock. He’s ordering a sugar basin. Can’t you go faster? Shake a leg.’

‘I want it as a birthday present to my venerable Aunt Lydia Hancock. This is the creamer of the set. Only this morning a clumsy maid melted the sugar basin. I want you to make me a new one. I want it about so high ... so broad .. .’Johnny glanced at the delicate, lace-ruffled, gesturing hands, guessed the inches, and wrote it down.

‘But you have not as yet said whether or not you can make my sugar basin for me—and have it done by Monday next? Of course I thought first of you—because you made the original. But there are other silversmiths. Perhaps you would rather not undertake ...’ Mr. Lapham was in a study.

Mr. Hancock did not recognize him as the apprentice of Mr. Lapham who had rashly promised a sugar basin in time for his Aunt Lydia’s birthday.

Ah ... a sugar basin to match!