But I couldn’t see one in the village shop as big as I required. Ursula, however, ran against the very thing unexpectedly in town. The only difficulty was the packing, so she decided to carry it just as it was. Virginia expressed a sincere hope that she would at least tie a pale blue bow on the handle.
She got it safely as far as Paddington, but here an iron pillar suddenly ran alongside and torpedoed the pitcher—so she said—knocking a small but very business-like hole clean through its bulging side. Then the question arose: What was she to do with the remnants? The train was due to start in two minutes, so she hadn’t time to inquire for the station dust-bin.
Virginia suggested that she should try to induce the bookstall boy to accept it as payment for a packet of milk chocolate; failing that, she had better put an advertisement in the paper offering a wonderful specimen of antique Roman pottery in exchange for a sable motoring coat, or a cartload of white mice.
What she did do was to leave it tidily on the nearest seat, with the intention of bestowing sixpence on the first porter she could waylay if he would make himself responsible for its after career. But apparently every employee at Paddington Station had enlisted.
The whistle was blown, and the train started to move slowly, just as the vigilant eye of the guard fell upon the disabled crock. His face lighted up. He seized it, rushed to the moving compartment containing Ursula. “Madam,” he gasped, “you have forgotten this,” and he thrust it into her arms.
She didn’t dare try to leave it behind any more!
Then there was the fish. It was on an occasion when Virginia was coming down by herself, and thus lacked the restraining, and more practical, hand of Ursula. Now, as I have already hinted, Virginia is an intelligent girl. She can tell you exactly how many million tons of certain chemicals could be excavated from the very bottom of Vesuvius (if only they could manage to put the fire out, of course), and how, if these million tons were applied to the land in Mars, as artificial manure, the wheat crop they would produce in one year—if only you could raise their temperature a few hundred degrees, and this could easily be done if you transfer—by wireless—the heat that isn’t needed in Vesuvius to Mars (or is it the moon?), where they do want it—why, then—(where was I?)—Oh, yes, the wheat crop they would harvest per annum would be sufficient to feed the whole of the inhabitants of this planet of ours, and several others thrown in, for—I forgot how many dozen years.