“Er—how much is the bun, please?” inquired Dick.
“Shilling,” snapped the waitress.
“Dear me! that’s rather expensive, isn’t it?” said Dick, regarding his two-shilling-piece ruefully. “And I’m afraid it looks a little stale, too.”
“Well, I never!” said the waitress, tossing her head scornfully, and shaking back her little corkscrew curls. “What next, I wonder? That bun has been here on and off for seventeen years, and I never had a complaint about it before. Stale, indeed!” And she sniffed scornfully.
“Perhaps we had better try the chocolate,” suggested Marjorie. “Can you tell us, please, how many pieces there are in the box?” she asked.
“No, I can’t!” was the ungracious reply. “It’s half-a-crown,” she added.
That, of course, put it out of the question, and as the gingerbeer bottle turned out to be empty, the contents having evaporated some years since, the children were obliged to turn, somewhat disconsolately, away from the “refreshment room,” and as they left they heard the waitress complaining, crossly—
“I can’t think what people want to come bothering for refreshments for, when I am busy reading; some folks have no consideration for others.” And she disappeared as mysteriously as she had arrived.
A little further down the platform, to their great delight, they discovered an automatic machine, but were greatly disappointed to find that it only professed to supply “furniture polish,” “tin tacks,” and “postage stamps.”
“And as we have no post-office here at all,” said the Archæopteryx, who had by this time joined them, “the stamps are of no use whatever. Fortunately,” he went on, “the Palæotherium brought some banana sandwiches in his carpet bag; so, if you come back with me to his tent, we can have a little supper before we go to bed.”