Sir Franklin poked the fire and looked into it for a little while. Then, “It seems to me, Pembroke,” he said, “that the cook’s brother-in-law’s difficulties and the little matter of the children can be solved in the same action. Why shouldn’t we take over the toy-shop and let the children into it on Christmas Eve to choose what they will?”
Pembroke stroked his chin for a moment and then said, “The very thing, sir.”
“Where does the cook’s brother-in-law live?” Sir Franklin asked.
Pembroke gave the address.
“Then if you’ll call a hansom, Pembroke, we’ll drive there at once.”
III
It does not matter at all about the visit which Sir Franklin Ingleside and Pembroke paid to the cook’s brother-in-law. All that need be said is that the cook’s brother-in-law was quite willing to sell Sir Franklin his stock-in-trade and to make the shop over to him, and Sir Franklin Ingleside rode back to Berkeley Square not only a gentleman who had horses and carriages and who bought old pictures and new books, but perhaps the first gentleman in Berkeley Square to have a toy-shop too.
On the way back he talked to Pembroke about his plans.
“There’s a kind of child, Pembroke,” said Sir Franklin, “that I particularly want to encourage and reward. It is clear that we can’t give presents to all; and I don’t want the greedy ones and the strongest ones to be as fortunate as the modest ones and the weak ones. So my plan is, first of all to make sure that the kind of child that I have in mind is properly looked after, and then to give the others what remains. And the particular children I mean are the little girls who take care of their younger brothers and sisters while their parents are busy, and who go to the shops and stalls and do the marketing. Whenever I see one I always say to myself, ‘There goes a Little Mother!’ and it is the Little Mothers whom this Christmas we must particularly help.
“Now what you must do, Pembroke, during the next few days, is to make a list of the streets in every direction within a quarter of a mile of the toy-shop, and then find out, from the schoolmistresses, and the butchers, and the publicans’ wives, and the grocers, and the oil-shops, and the greengrocers, and the more talkative women on the doorsteps, which are the best Little Mothers in the district and what is the size of their families, and get their names and addresses. And then we shall know what to do.”