“Yes,” said Piggy. “Oh, how lovely! I adore Olga. Will she let me sit next her?”
“Eh?” said Mrs. Antrobus.
“Lunch on Sunday, mamma, with Olga Bracely,” screamed Goosie.
“But she’s not here,” said Mrs. Antrobus.
“No, but she’s coming, mamma,” shouted Piggy. “Come along, Goosie. There’s Mrs. Boucher. We’ll tell her about poor Mrs. Lucas.”
Mrs. Boucher’s bath-chair was stationed opposite the butcher’s, where her husband was ordering the joint for Sunday. Piggy and Goosie had poured the tale of Lucia’s comparative poverty into her ear, before Georgie got to her. Here, however, it had a different reception, and Georgie found himself the hero of the hour.
“An immense fortune. I call it an immense fortune,” said Mrs. Boucher, emphatically, as Georgie approached. “Good morning, Mr. Georgie, I’ve heard your news, and I hope Mrs. Lucas will use it well. Brompton Square, too! I had an aunt who lived there once, my mother’s sister, you understand, not my father’s, and she used to say that she would sooner live in Brompton Square than in Buckingham Palace. What will they do with it, do you suppose? It must be worth its weight in gold. What a strange coincidence that Mr. Lucas’s aunt and mine should both have lived there! Any more news?”
“Yes,” said Georgie. “Olga is coming down to-morrow——”
“Well, that’s a bit of news!” said Mrs. Boucher, as her husband came out of the butcher’s shop. “Jacob, Olga’s coming down to-morrow, so Mr. Georgie says. That’ll make you happy! You’re madly in love with Olga, Jacob, so don’t deny it. You’re an old flirt, Jacob, that’s what you are. I sha’n’t get much of your attention till Olga goes away again. I should be ashamed at your age, I should. And young enough to be your daughter or mine either. And three thousand a year, Mr. Georgie says. I call it an immense fortune. That’s Mrs. Lucas, you know. I thought perhaps two. I’m astounded. Why, when old Mrs. Toppington—not the wife of the young Mr. Toppington who married the niece of the man who invented laughing gas—but of his father, or perhaps his uncle, I can’t be quite sure which, but when old Mr. Toppington died, he left his son or nephew, whichever it was, a sum that brought him in just about that, and he was considered a very rich man. He had the house just beyond the church at Scroby Windham where my father was rector, and he built the new wing with the billiard-room——”
Georgie knew he would never get through his morning’s work if he listened to everything that Mrs. Boucher had to say about young Mr. Toppington, and broke in.