Part 48

"Nothing like looking in the right place for a thing when you've finished looking in the others," observed Mrs. Postwhistle.

"What do you mean?" demanded Jack.

"Just what I say," answered Mrs. Postwhistle.

Jack Herring looked at Mrs. Postwhistle. But Mrs. Postwhistle's face was not of the expressive order.

"Post office still going strong?" asked Jack Herring.

"The post office 'as been a great 'elp to me," admitted Mrs. Postwhistle; "and I'm not forgetting that I owe it to you."

"Don't mention it," murmured Jack Herring.

They brought her presents--nothing very expensive, more as tokens of regard: dainty packets of sweets, nosegays of simple flowers, bottles of scent. To Somerville "Miss Bulstrode" hinted that if he really did desire to please her, and wasn't merely talking through his hat--Miss Bulstrode apologised for the slang, which, she feared, she must have picked up from her brother--he might give her a box of Messani's cigarettes, size No. 2. The suggestion pained him. Somerville the Briefless was perhaps old-fashioned. Miss Bulstrode cut him short by agreeing that he was, and seemed disinclined for further conversation.

They took her to Madame Tussaud's. They took her up the Monument. They took her to the Tower of London. In the evening they took her to the Polytechnic to see Pepper's Ghost. They made a merry party wherever they went.

"Seem to be enjoying themselves!" remarked other sightseers, surprised and envious.

"Girl seems to be a bit out of it," remarked others, more observant.

"Sulky-looking bit o' goods, I call her," remarked some of the ladies.

The fortitude with which Miss Bulstrode bore the mysterious disappearance of her brother excited admiration.

"Hadn't we better telegraph to your people in Derbyshire?" suggested Jack Herring.

"Don't do it," vehemently protested the thoughtful Miss Bulstrode; "it might alarm them. The best plan is for you to lend me a couple of sovereigns and let me return home quietly."

"You might be robbed again," feared Jack Herring. "I'll go down with you."

"Perhaps he'll turn up to-morrow," thought Miss Bulstrode. "Expect he's gone on a visit."

"He ought not to have done it," thought Jack Herring, "knowing you were coming."

"Oh! he's like that," explained Miss Bulstrode.

"If I had a young and beautiful sister--" said Jack Herring.

"Oh! let's talk of something else," suggested Miss Bulstrode. "You make me tired."

With Jack Herring, in particular, Johnny was beginning to lose patience. That "Miss Bulstrode's" charms had evidently struck Jack Herring all of a heap, as the saying is, had in the beginning amused Master Johnny. Indeed--as in the seclusion of his bedchamber over the little grocer's shop he told himself with bitter self-reproach--he had undoubtedly encouraged the man. From admiration Jack had rapidly passed to infatuation, from infatuation to apparent imbecility. Had Johnny's mind been less intent upon his own troubles, he might have been suspicious. As it was, and after all that had happened, nothing now could astonish Johnny. "Thank Heaven," murmured Johnny, as he blew out the light, "this Mrs. Postwhistle appears to be a reliable woman."

Now, about the same time that Johnny's head was falling thus upon his pillow, the Autolycus Club sat discussing plans for their next day's entertainment.

"I think," said Jack Herring, "the Crystal Palace in the morning when it's nice and quiet."

"To be followed by Greenwich Hospital in the afternoon," suggested Somerville.

"Winding up with the Moore and Burgess Minstrels in the evening," thought Porson.

"Hardly the place for the young person," feared Jack Herring. "Some of the jokes--"

"Mr. Brandram gives a reading of Julius Caesar at St. George's Hall," the Wee Laddie informed them for their guidance.