"WHAT A LOT OF MONEY!"
Bert and Nan sat up very straight on the chairs in Miss Pompret's dining
room, and looked first at her and then at the china closet with its
shiny, glass doors. Miss Pompret sat up very straight, too, in her
chair, and she, also, looked first from Nan and Bert to the wonderful
china, which seemed made partly of egg shells, so fine it was and
pretty.
Miss Pompret's dining room was one in which it seemed every one had to
sit up straight, and in which every chair had to be in just the right
place, where the table legs must keep very straight, too, and where not
even a corner of a rug dared to be turned up. In fact it was a very
straight, old-fashioned but very beautiful dining room, and Miss Pompret
herself was an old-fashioned but beautiful lady.
"Now if you will sit very still, and not move, I'll bring out some
pieces of my china set and show them to you," said Miss Pompret. "You
were so kind as to take the letter to the post-office for me when I
could not go myself, that I feel I ought to reward you to some way."
"The chocolate cake was enough," said Nan.
"Yes, it was awful good!" sighed Bert.
"Mother told you not to say 'awful,'" interposed Ben's sister.
"Oh, well, I mean it was terribly nice!" exclaimed the boy.
"I'm glad you liked it," went on Miss Pompret with a smile. "But I must
not keep you too long, or your mother will be wondering what has become
of you. But I thought you, Nan, would be interested in seeing beautiful
china. You'll have a home of your own, some day, and nothing is nicer in
a nice home than beautiful dishes."
"I know that!" cried Nan. "My mamma has some very beautiful dishes, and
once in a great while she lets me look them over. Sometimes, too, we
have them on the table--when it's some special occasion like a birthday
or visitors."
"I don't much like to see the real nice dishes on a table," remarked
Bert. "I'm always afraid that I'll break one of them, and then I know my
mother would feel pretty bad over it."
"You must be careful, my boy. You can't handle nice china as you can
your baseball or your football," said Miss Pompret, with a smile.
"Well, I guess they couldn't treat dishes like baseballs and footballs!"
cried Nan. "Just think of throwing a sugar bowl up into the air or
hitting it with a bat, or kicking a teapot all around the lots!"
"That certainly wouldn't be very nice," said Miss Pompret.
She went over to the closet, unlocked the glass doors, and set some of
the rare pieces out on the lace cover of the dining room table. Bert and
Nan saw that Miss Pompret handled each piece as though it might be
crushed, even in her delicate hands, which were almost as white and thin
as a piece of china.
"This is the wonderful Pompret tableware," went on the old lady. "It has
been in my family over a hundred years. My great-grandfather had it, and
now it has come to me. I have had it a number of years, and I think more
of it than anything else I have. Of course, if I had any little children
I would care for them more than for these dishes," went on Miss Pompret.
"But I'm a lonely old lady, and you neighborhood children are the only
ones I have," and she smiled rather wistfully at Nan and Bert.
Carefully dish after dish was taken from the closet and set out for the
Bobbsey twins to look at. They did not venture to so much as touch one.
The china seemed too easily broken for that.
"I should think you'd have to be very careful when you washed those
dishes," remarked Nan, as she saw how light glowed through the side of
one of the thin cups.
"Oh, I am," answered Miss Pompret. "No one ever washes this set but me.
My maid is very careful, but I would not allow her to touch a single
piece. I don't use it very often. Only when some old and dear friends
come to see me is the Pompret china used. And then I am sorry to say, I
can not use the whole set."
"Why not?" asked Bert. "Are you afraid they'll break it?"
"Oh no," and Miss Pompret smiled. "I'm not afraid of that. But you see I
haven't the whole set, so I can't show it all. One of the sorrows of my
life is that part of my beautiful set of china is missing."
"There's a lot of it, though," added Bert, as he saw a number of shelves
covered with the rare plates, cups and saucers.
"Yes, but the sugar bowl and cream pitcher are missing," went on Miss
Pompret, with a shake of her white head. "They were beautiful. But,
alas! they are missing." And she sighed deeply.
"Where are they?" asked Nan.
"Ah, that's the mystery I am going to tell you about," said Miss
Pompret. "It isn't a very big story, and I won't keep you long. It isn't
often I get a chance to tell it, so you must forgive an old lady for
keeping you from your play," and again she smiled, in rather a sad
fashion, at Nan and Bert.
"Oh, we like it here!" exclaimed Nan quickly.
"It's lots of fun!" added Bert. "I like to hear about a mystery."
"Well," began Miss Pompret, "as I told you, this set of china has been
in our family over a hundred years. It was made in England, and each
piece has the mark of the man who made it. See, this is what I mean."
She turned over one of the cups and showed the Bobbsey twins where, on
the bottom, there was the stamp, in blue, of some animal in a circle of
gold.
"That is the mark of the Waredon factory, where this china was made,"
went on Miss Pompret. "Only china made by Mr. Waredon can have this mark
on it."
"It looks like our dog Snap," said Bert.
"Oh, no!" laughed Miss Pompret. "That is supposed to be the British
lion. Mr. Waredon took that as a trade-mark, and at the top of the
golden circle, with the blue lion inside, you can see the letter 'J'
while at the bottom is the letter 'W.' They stand for the name Jonathan
Waredon, in whose English factory the china was made. Each piece has
this mark on it, and no other make of china in the world can be
rightfully marked like that.
"Well, now about the mystery. Some years ago, before you children were
born, I lived in another city. I had the china set there with me, and
then it was complete. I had the cream pitcher and the sugar bowl. One
day a ragged man came to the house. He was very ragged and poor. I
suppose you would call him a tramp.
"The cook I then had felt sorry for him, and let him come into the
kitchen to have something to eat. As it happened, part of my rare china
set was on a table in the same room. I was getting ready to wash it
myself, as I would let no one else touch it.
"Well, when I came out to wash my beautiful dishes the sugar bowl and
cream pitcher of the set were gone. They had been on the table when the
tramp was eating the lunch the cook gave him, but now they could not be
found. The cook and I looked all over for them--we searched the house,
in fact, but never found them."
"Who took them?" asked Bert, eagerly.
"Well, my dear boy, I have never found out. The cook always said the
tramp put the sugar bowl and cream pitcher in his pocket when her back
was turned to get him a cup of coffee. At any rate, when he was gone the
two pieces were gone also, and while I do not want to think badly of any
one, I have come to believe that the tramp took my rare dishes."
"Didn't you ever see him again?" asked Nan.
"No, my dear, never, as far as I know."
"And did you never find the dishes?" Bert wanted to know.
"Never. I advertised for them. I inquired if any boys in the
neighborhood might have slipped in and taken them for a joke, but I
never found them. To this day," went on Miss Pompret, "I have never
again set eyes on my cream pitcher and sugar bowl. They disappeared as
completely and suddenly as though they had fallen down a hole in the
earth. The tramp may have taken them; but what would he do with just two
pieces? They were too frail for him to use. A man like that would want
heavy dishes. Perhaps he knew how valuable they were and perhaps he
intended asking a reward for bringing them back. But I never heard from
him.
"So that is why my rare set of Pompret china is not complete. The two
pieces are missing and I would give a hundred dollars this minute if I
could get them back!"
"A--a hundred dollars!" exclaimed Bert.
"Yes, my boy. If some one would get me that sugar bowl and pitcher, with
the mark of the lion in a golden circle, and the initials 'J' at the top
and 'W' at the bottom, I would willingly pay one hundred dollars," said
Miss Pompret.
"A--a whole hundred dollars!" gasped Bert. "What a lot of money!"