"I want to know if you've got any china bowls to
sell--bowls for bread and milk, with little blue leaves running over
them."
"To be sure, to be sure," said the man. "We've the very thing--it is
strange, to be sure, that I should have just what the little master
wants, isn't it?" he went on, turning to the woman.
"If the gentleman and lady could come down and look at them, they would
see better," said she, seizing the panniers with a great show of getting
out the crockery they contained.
"Us can't come down there," said Duke. "You must come in at the gate,
and us will meet you at the back door."
The man and woman hesitated.
"Will the servants let us come so far, d'ye think?" asked the man. "Are
there no dogs about? Must we say the little master and missy told us to
come for that they want to buy a bowl?"
"Oh no," cried Pamela hastily, "that wouldn't do. The servants mustn't
know."
The man glanced at the woman with a meaning look.
"To be sure, to be sure," she said. "Master and missy must please
themselves. It's no business of the servants. Perhaps it's for a little
present to their mamma they want one of our pretty bowls?"
"Us hasn't any mamma," said Duke, "and it isn't for a present, but still
us doesn't want any one to know.
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