'Oh!' said he, 'why didn't you say so at first? We don't keep that sort of thing here, and it's a chance if you get it at all. You might in Wardour Street, or at Mr. Aked's in Green Street, Leicester Square.'
Well, time was getting on and I did a thing I had never done before, though I had often read of it in the novelettes. I waved my umbrella and I got into a hansom cab.
'Young man,' I said, 'will you please drive to Mr. Aked's in Green Street, Leicester Square? and drive careful, young man, for I have a piece of china in my hands that's worth a fortune to me.'
So he grinned and I got in and the cab started. A hansom cab is better than any carriage you ever rode in, with soft cushions to lean against and little looking-glasses to look at yourself in, and, somehow, you don't hear the wheels. I leaned back and looked at myself and felt like a duchess, for I had my new hat and mantle on, and I knew I looked nice by the way the young men on the tops of the omnibuses looked at me and smiled. It was a lovely drive. When we got to Mr. Aked's, which looked to me more like a rag-and-bone shop than anything else, and very poor after the beautiful place in Queen Victoria Street, I got out and went in.
An old gentleman came towards me and asked what he could do for me, and he looked surprised, as though he wasn't used to see such smart girls in his pokey old shop.
'Please, sir,' I said, 'I want a bowl like this, if you have got such a thing among your old odds and ends.'
He took the piece of china and looked at it through his glasses for a minute. Then he gave it back to me very carefully.
'There's not a piece of this ware in the market. The few specimens extant are in private collections.'
'Oh dear,' I said; 'and can't I get another like it?'
'Not if you were to offer me a hundred pounds down,' said the old man.