FROM the lakes the B. A.’s traveled slowly and merrily to London, where they established themselves at a quiet boarding-house overlooking a pretty square, and plunged into a mad delirium of sight-seeing and shopping.
“I never felt pulled in so many directions in my life,” complained Babe wearily. “The shop-windows are so fascinating, and things are all so cheap, and it’s such fun paying for them in this comical English money.”
“And your friends will all be so glad to get whatever you don’t want for yourself because it came from abroad,” put in Babbie. “I’m going to do all my Christmas shopping here and in Paris.”
“Yes, I want to, too,” agreed Babe, “but all the time I’m in the shops I keep thinking how the places I’ve wanted to see for ages and perhaps never can see again are all within a stone’s throw—well, within a ’bus-ride, if you like that better, and I decide to go sight-seeing with Madeline. But when you and Mrs. Hildreth and Betty come home at night with all your fascinating packages from Liberty’s and the Irish lace stores, why then I wish I’d shopped.”
“You can’t have everything,” said Madeline sagely. “That’s been my motto for years, and it’s never so useful as when I’m traveling. You don’t enjoy anything unless you make up your mind not to worry about the things you’ve got to miss. I’m going shopping myself to-morrow.”
“I thought you hated it,” exclaimed all her auditors at once.
“But this isn’t any ordinary shopping tour. I’m going to buy Eleanor’s duke—that is, if the rest of you will trust me to pick him out.”
“Of course we will,” said Babbie, “but why can’t we all come, too, and help?”
“Babbie, you promised me you would stay quietly at home to-morrow and rest,” Mrs. Hildreth reminded her.
“Well, so I will,” Babbie gave up cheerfully. “And Babe has a luncheon engagement with the friend from home that she met in the American express office.”
“Then Betty and I will go duke-hunting,” said Madeline. “That suits me perfectly. Too many matchmakers would be fatal. The duke would detect our eagerness and demand an exorbitant settlement. Dukes come high, you know, at best, so be prepared to be generous with your shillings.”
“Oh, Madeline, do tell us what you’re going to get,” begged Babbie. But Madeline only smiled mysteriously and told Mrs. Hildreth that she and Betty probably shouldn’t be back for luncheon.
Next morning when they were safely out of ear-shot she divulged her idea. “You know those pretty old Staffordshire china figures? The spotted dogs are the commonest, but there are men and women, too. Oh, you must have seen them, Betty, in the windows of the antique shops—shepherdesses with looped-up skirts, leaning on their crooks, and cute little men with lace ruffles at their wrists and pink coats and silver knee-buckles. They look awfully aristocratic; somehow, I don’t think we could get a better duke.”
Betty hadn’t noticed anything of the sort, so they went a block out of their way down Oxford Street to see some in a shop that Madeline remembered. Sure enough, the window was full of the queer little china figures, and there was one that Betty declared was just the duke for Eleanor.
“Let’s go right in and get it,” she urged jubilantly. “It’s so quaint and—oh, so European somehow. Eleanor will be perfectly delighted.”
Madeline laughed at her innocent enthusiasm. “We can’t afford to buy it here,” she warned her. “Those figures are dreadfully expensive. In a fashionable neighborhood like this they’d probably ask eight or ten dollars for that duke. But the other day when Babe and I were riding on a ’bus away out toward Hammersmith to see how far you could go for fourpence, I noticed a whole cluster of antique shops, and I thought we might find a real bargain out there.”
“But this is such a pretty, graceful little figure,” said Betty doubtfully. “How much are we going to spend for each of the girls?”
“The gargoyles and the photograph that Helen wanted won’t be over sixty cents, so I suppose we ought to find something at about that price for the general present to Eleanor and Bob. Then, of course, we can any of us take any of them whatever extra things we like.”
“Let’s just ask about this duke,” urged Betty, who had lost her heart to the little china figure, and couldn’t believe it cost as much as Madeline thought.
But “Thirty-five shillings,” said the pompous shop-keeper, and Betty had to explain blushingly that she couldn’t afford so much that morning.
“That’s eight dollars and seventy-five cents,” she said dejectedly, as they went off to find the Hammersmith ’bus. “We can’t ever get one for sixty cents, Madeline. The neighborhood wouldn’t make eight dollars difference.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Madeline easily. “I’ve bought silver boxes in Holland for thirty cents and matched them on Fifth Avenue for five dollars. Anyhow it will be fun hunting.”
It was fun. The Hammersmith shops were crowded with all sorts of interesting old odds-and-ends, the like of which Betty had never seen before. She admired the glib way in which Madeline chatted with the shop-keepers about strange things like black Wedgwood, Chippendale chairs, and Flemish inlay. But when they inquired for Staffordshire figures no one seemed to have any, or at least not any that could pass for a duke. But every one was very obliging about suggesting more shops to try, and when that particular neighborhood was quite exhausted some one sent the girls off on what proved to be a wild goose chase to the shops near Nottinghill Gate, “where there isn’t any hill nor any gate,” as Betty explained later, in relating the day’s adventures, “so how can you tell when to get off the ’bus?”
And as they couldn’t tell, they were carried six blocks past and had to walk back in the noonday heat, only to find that the biggest shop, which had been so highly recommended, kept nothing but brasses.
“We’ll go in here,” said Madeline, opening the door of a dusky little second-hand store with an impatient jerk, “and if they haven’t what we want we’ll stop. Yes, no matter if they tell us positively that a shop round the corner is packed tight with Staffordshire figures, we won’t go to it. Instead we’ll go and get a cool and luscious luncheon,—though where we can find one in this dingy neighborhood, I’m sure I don’t know.”
A small girl with wisps of tow-colored hair falling over her eyes came out from a back room to see what they wanted.
She shook her head doubtfully when Madeline mentioned Staffordshire. “I’m sure I couldn’t say, ma’am. She’s out—the madame is—and I couldn’t rightly say what we have. Would you know it if you saw it? You might look about then.”
So they “looked about,” among the curious agglomeration of mirrors, candlesticks, lustre jugs, cameos, and time-stained engravings, all standing in dusty disarray on top of Queen Anne sideboards, carved centre tables, and beautiful old Sheraton writing-desks with secret compartments, that set Betty, who was having her first taste of the delights of antique-hunting, wild with delight. But though they poked into every nook and corner, no Staffordshire figures came to light.
“Well, we shall have to give it up,” said Madeline dejectedly. “How much is that lustre pitcher, please—the fat little one with the roses in the border?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” confessed the little maid sadly. “You see very few comes here in the morning, and it’s so very difficult remembering the prices, ma’am.”
“Oh, dear!” Madeline wanted the fat little pitcher all the more now that she couldn’t have it. “When will the owner of the shop be back, do you think?”
“Oh, I really couldn’t say, ma’am. In an hour perhaps, and maybe not till time for tea. You see it’s Friday, and she’s gone to market. But she went early to-day, so she might be back early.”
“But does it ever take her all day to do the family marketing?” asked Madeline curiously.
“Oh, it’s not for the family, ma’am; it’s for the shop she’s buying. Everybody goes to the market on Fridays.”
“Whom do you mean by everybody?”
“Why, all the dealers in London, ma’am. The madame buys almost everything there. Things go very cheap there, you see. It’s a pity she didn’t know what you were wanting, or she’d have found it for you this morning. You can find almost anything at the market if you look sharp.”
“I suppose you couldn’t tell us how to get there?” inquired Madeline tentatively.
Oh, yes she could; any one in London could do that. It was the Caledonian market, you understand. First you took the Underground to King’s Cross, and then you took the ’bus to Market Road, and any one would tell you where to get down. And after that it was just a step to the market.
“What a find!” Madeline caught Betty’s arm as soon as they were outside, and fairly danced her down the street. “We shall get all sorts of bargains in dukes there, and then it’s such a lovely stunt hunting them along with all the dealers in London. We’ll buy some fruit and eat it on the Underground. Where is the Underground, I wonder? She said everybody went there Friday mornings. Should you think it would close at twelve or at one?”
Of course Betty hadn’t the least idea. In fact she couldn’t quite see what there was to be so excited about, but as usual she took Madeline’s word for it.
“Markets are great,” Madeline explained when they had at last found the Underground. “I’ve been to the rag-fair in Rome and the Christmas-sale in Paris, and they were both no end of fun. Some one told father about a big market in London, but he never could find it. Won’t he be envious when I bring out my trophies!”
When they got into the ’bus for Market Road nearly every other passenger was laden with a big basket.
“They’re going to market, too,” Madeline nudged Betty. “So we’re not hopelessly late after all.”
When they had turned in at the big gates Betty stared about her in amazement. The vast open space was thronged with a laughing, chattering crowd of buyers. But above the noise they made rose the strident cries of the marketmen.
“Penny a mar-r-r-ket bunch!”
“Whatever-you-like at yer own price.”
“Rusty nails! Rusty na-ils!”
It took time to disentangle even those few cries from the multitude of strange announcements.
“Who would want rusty nails?” demanded Betty.
“I don’t know, but there they are—pounds and pounds of them. Somebody must want them or they wouldn’t be here. Isn’t it fun having everything spread out on the ground?”
“Literally everything,” laughed Betty. “Books and china and second-hand calico wrappers, and—yes, Madeline, second-hand tooth-brushes, right next to that lovely inlaid furniture.”
“And there’s a Persian kitten,” added Madeline. “Poor little pussy! She looks frightened half to death.”
“And hats and furs,” put in Betty.
“And jewelry. Betty, I’ll buy you a penny pin as a memento. Choose.”
Betty chose a brooch consisting of a very realistic red raspberry and two green leaves. “Thank you,” she said, “and isn’t that a lustre-ware pitcher?”
It was, and it was in the collection of a man who was crying, “Whatever-ye-like at yer own price,” at the top of his lungs.
“A shilling,” Madeline offered boldly, pointing to the pitcher.
“Three,” retorted the man decisively.
“But you just said, ‘Whatever you like at your own price,’” Madeline reminded him.
The man winked cheerfully. “Any of this rubbish, ma’am, I mean.” He picked up a handful of the rusty nails. “You want only the good things. The pitcher’s a bargain at three bob.”
“Have you any Staffordshire figures?” asked Madeline.
The man rummaged in a basket and produced two little white lambs, each standing on a hillock of green grass.
“Oh, how cunning,” murmured Betty. “I simply must have those.”
“Then don’t act too anxious, or he’ll put the price away up,” Madeline whispered.
“You buy them,” Betty whispered back.
“We wanted a man’s figure,” explained Madeline nonchalantly. “You haven’t any? Then I guess that’s all. How much are the lambs?”
“Thrippence.”
“I’ll take them,” cried Betty before Madeline could answer.
The man looked amusedly from one to the other. “You mustn’t quarrel over the baa-lambs, ladies.”
“Oh, we won’t.” Betty held out her money. “Madeline, look!”
A wizened, grizzled little Jew, whose wares were spread out next to those of the owner of the “baa-lambs,” had overheard their conversation with his rival and was holding out a figure, the exact counterpart of the one in the Oxford Street shop. Madeline pinched Betty to remind her not to appear over-anxious.
“Oh, yes,” she said indifferently, holding out her hand for the little figure and examining it carefully for cracks or nicks. “But now that we’ve bought the lambs I don’t know—how much is this?”
“Five bob, and you can’t find another such bargain in London,” the dealer assured her eagerly.
“What’s a bob?” whispered Betty.
“A shilling,” Madeline explained. Then she turned to the dealer. “Make it two and six.”
“FOUR AND SIX!”
“Four and six,” he compromised.
Madeline shook her head severely. “If you’d said three and six I might have considered it. Come on, Betty.”
Betty stared in amazement. Was Madeline—yes, she was actually walking off. She was going to leave that lovely duke. But just as Madeline turned the corner, the little dealer jumped up, the figure in one hand and a scrap of crumpled paper in the other, and with a bound he was at Madeline’s elbow.
“Have it for three and six,” he whispered confidentially.
“Oh, very well.” Madeline accepted the bundle nonchalantly.
“Hallo, Madeline. What have you done him out of now?” Dick Blake was standing in front of them, his face wreathed in smiles. “I thought you’d be here to-day,” he went on. “I had a ‘leading,’ as we used to say in Paris when we wanted to do a silly thing, that if I came up here I should lose all the Americans but you. How do you like marketing with Madeline, Miss Wales?”
“Oh, Dick, it’s jolly fun seeing you. But what on earth are you doing here?”
“Pursuing you,” explained Dick cheerfully. “Didn’t I just say so? When I’m not pursuing you, I’m pursuing a magnate. He’s more elusive,—or at least I don’t know his habits so well, and up to date I haven’t found him. But I take my success with you to be a good omen. I’m sure I shall spot my magnate before long.”
“Please talk sense, Dick.”
“I am,” he assured her solemnly. “You see it’s this way. New York was hot and stupid, with everybody gone who could manage to get away, and I wanted to go, too. But ‘The Quiver’ hasn’t been exactly booming lately, and I couldn’t afford a nice trip.”
“Meaning a trip to Europe,” interposed Madeline.
“Exactly,” Dick took her up. “So I was feeling awfully blue, and then a week ago to-night my old chief down in Newspaper Row ’phoned and said, ‘Dickie, you’re the best hunter we ever had. Go to Europe and find an elusive magnate, whose mysterious absence is upsetting Wall Street prices,’ and I said, ‘Done,’ and made up ‘The Quiver’ for two months ahead, and here I am. I got to Liverpool last night and to London this morning, and so far I’ve ascertained that the Elusive Magnate aforesaid isn’t staying at any of the likely hotels.”
“Dick, you are too absurd,” laughed Madeline. “What’s your magnate’s name?”
“Morton—Jasper Jones Morton. Haven’t seen him, have you?”
“I haven’t the pleasure of his acquaintance. Have you, Betty?”
Betty shook her head smilingly.
“I’ve got his picture here somewhere.” Dick felt in his pocket and drew out a cabinet photograph. “He’s not exactly handsome and he’s never gone in for society, but he’s really very well-to-do, and when he suddenly departs for the first vacation of his long and useful life, just when his railroads are in a good deal of a muddle and several of his corporations are being sued by Uncle Sam, why, naturally Wall Street sits up and takes notice.” He passed the picture to Madeline.
“Why, Betty, it’s our magnate,” she cried laughingly, and Betty, looking at the picture over her shoulder, gave a little shriek of delight. “It is,” she cried.
Dick looked in amazement from one to the other. “I say, have you really met him?” he demanded. “Where was he, and which way was he headed? He didn’t drop any hints about his reasons for being over here, did he?”
Madeline looked at Betty. “You talked to him most.”
“Do you mean did he say whether he is over here just on a vacation for his health?” asked Betty.
Dick nodded, and she repeated Mr. Jasper Jones Morton’s anathemas against vacations, doctors, and European travel. “I’m sure he was telling the truth,” she added earnestly. “He said it all as if he meant it,—he couldn’t have been making up.”
“Having conversed with him about other things he doesn’t like, I catch your point,” chuckled Dick. “J. J. Morton’s earnest hatred is very earnest indeed.” Then he grew sober suddenly. “I wonder where’s the nearest place to cable from. I must get this off at once. Miss Wales, you’ve done me the best kind of a good turn. You don’t mind my taking your story, do you, since you haven’t any possible use for it?”
“Mr. Morton won’t mind, will he?” asked Betty anxiously. “He was awfully nice to us, and it would be mean to take advantage of him.”
“No,” said Dick, “I honestly don’t think he’ll mind. I don’t believe he wants the market to go to smash on his account. And to me it means—well, I haven’t been here a day yet; and the chief gave me a week to find him and get an interview. So it means the biggest kind of a big beat, Miss Wales, and that means a juicy fee and a juicy fee means——” Dick stopped suddenly, bit his lip, and then laughed. “I didn’t use to be so mercenary, did I, Madeline? Then I have your consent, Miss Wales? Are you girls coming back with me?”
For the first part of the long ride Dick Blake was silent, his face puckered into deep wrinkles of thought. All at once he threw back his head and laughed merrily. “I’ve got it,” he said, “head-lines and all. Now we can talk. What did you do the little Jew out of, Madeline?”
“Oh, we were buying a duke for Eleanor Watson,” explained Madeline tantalizingly. “She wants one, you know.”
The worried look came back to Dick’s fine gray eyes. “Go slow, Madeline. You were buying—— Eleanor wants a duke?”
Madeline took pity on him and unwrapped the dainty figurine, which Dick duly admired.
“By the way, Miss Wales,” he began suddenly, “you don’t know where Jasper J. went from Grasmere, I suppose.”
Betty repeated what the old gentleman had said about the superiority of French roads.
“Then I suppose I’d better cross the channel to-night,” sighed Dick, “and here’s where I leave this ’bus. Wish I could go home with you and see the rest of the ‘Merry Hearts’ and have a good talk. Good-bye, Miss Wales. So long, Madeline. See you again somewhere over here.” And he was gone.
“Well,” Madeline told the others, when they reached home, “we’ve got the duke and he’s a darling, and we’ve found out the name of the Grasmere magnate, and Betty’s been being a B. A. again—to whom in the world do you guess, but Dick Blake. It will be in all the New York papers to-morrow morning. How’s that for a strenuous day of it?”
