This didn’t suit Fatty at all. What would be the good of that!
“Well, she rather wanted me to take her some particulars today,” said Fatty. “Er - a house something like that one called Milton House might do for her.”
“What price house does she want?” asked the house-agent, still loohng suspiciously at Fatty. He didn’t like boys.
Fatty didn’t know what to say. He had a good deal of general knowledge, but the price of houses didn’t come into it. He hesitated.
“Well - about five hundred pounds,” he said boldly, thinking that that was such a lot of money surely it would buy a house like Milton House.
The house-agent gave a short bark of a laugh. “Go away!” he said. “Trying to have me on, aren’t you? Five hundred pounds indeed! Why, that would hardly buy a cottage these days. You go and tell your aunt she’d better spend her money on a doll’s house! And by the way, just give me your aunt’s address, will you?”
Fatty was equal to this, and at once gave a perfectly marvellous address, which the house-agent wrote down rather doubtfully.
“Er - perhaps you’d better give me her telephone number too,” said the man, hoping to catch Fatty out.
“Certainly,” said Fatty. “Whiskers 0000.”
Before the astonished agent could make any comment about this curious telephone number, Fatty had bade him a polite good-day and gone.