“I’ve got tea ready for you downstairs. Wash your hands and come along, will you? Don’t be too long, because the scones are nice and hot.”
Five hungry children and an equally hungry dog shot off downstairs, forgetting everything for the moment but hot scones, strawberry jam, and cake. But they wouldn’t forget for long - things sounded too exciting!
Fatty has some Ideas
Christmas came so quickly, and there was so much to do that Fatty had no time to teach the Find-Outers any of the things he had learnt. The postman came continually to the three homes, and cards soon stood everywhere. Parcels were hidden away, Mince-pies were made. Large turkeys hung in the larders.
“I do love Christmas,” said Bets a hundred times a day. “I wonder what I shall get on Christmas morning. I do hope I get a new doll. I’d like one that opens and shuts its eyes properly. I’ve only got one doll that does that, and her eyes always stick shut. Then I have to shake her hard, and I’m sure she thinks I’m cross with her.”
“Baby!” said Pip. “Fancy still wanting dolls! I bet you won’t get one.”
To Bets’ great disappointment there was no doll for her in her Christmas parcels. Everyone thought that as she was now nine, and liked to say she was getting big, she wouldn’t want a doll. So her mother had given her a work-basket and her father a difficult jigsaw which she knew Pip would like much better than she would!
She was rather sad - but Fatty put everything right by coming round on Christmas morning with a big box for Bets - and inside was the doll she had wanted! It opened and shut its eyes without any shaking at all, and had such a smiling face that Bets lost her heart to it at once. She flung herself on Fatty and hugged him like a small bear.
He was pleased. He liked Bets. Mrs. Hilton was surprised at the beautiful doll.
“That is very kind of you, Frederick,” she said. “You shouldn’t have spent so much money on Bets, though.”