“I think Peggy had better go,” said Wooden’s mother. “She has a slightly better head than any of us, because she is human.”
“Oh, yes, let Peggy go,” said all the others at once. So Peggy went round the balcony to the other side of the house, feeling proud at the trust reposed in her, but a little alarmed also at what should happen. But she hid that from the dolls, and walked with a firm and confident step.
There was as big a space in the market-place on the other side of the House of Cards as in the one in which Teddy was performing, but it was absolutely empty. Every doll was watching Teddy, and even the shops were deserted, as all the doll shopkeepers had gone round to the other side. A thief might have taken anything he liked from the shops, and nobody would have seen him. But dolls are never thieves, so it was quite safe.
Perhaps I ought not to have said that that side of the market-place was absolutely empty. It looked so to Peggy when she got there, but when she looked over the edge of the platform she saw a solitary doll figure standing below her, looking up. It was rather a disappointment to her, for it was a gentleman doll wrapped up in a long black cloak, and he had his arms full of pot-plants, like the ones the Lord Chancellor had bought to brighten up their rooms. Peggy thought they had quite enough pot-plants to go on with, and, if the gentleman doll only wanted to sell them some more, it was hardly worth Teddy’s cleverness to get all the people round on the other side, so that he might do so without being observed.
And that was apparently all that the gentleman doll did want, for directly he saw Peggy looking over the platform at him he called up to her, “Kind lady, buy a few pot-plants from a poor man. I’ve got some lovely ones here.”
“No, thank you,” said Peggy. “We have plenty. Besides, I haven’t got any money; at least, not here.”
“I don’t want any money for them,” said the gentleman doll. “Let me come up and show you my lovely pot-plants.”
Now there was something in his voice that Peggy seemed to recognize. She thought she had heard it before, but she couldn’t remember where or when. However, she began to understand that the pot-plants were only an excuse for the gentleman doll to get into the House of Cards, and that if he did so he might have something interesting to say.
“I should be glad if you could come up,” she said. “But the doors are locked, and I don’t suppose they will let you.”
“Yes, they will, if you say the word ‘pot-plants,’” said the gentleman doll. “Say that somebody has come from the palace with some pot-plants for you. Go quickly, before anybody comes.”