It seemed to suit his purpose very well, for he lowered the stone down into the shaft directly above the precious little envelope. But he had aimed amiss and it settled on a faded scrap of brown paper which he hoisted up. On one side of it was written, “Leave two quarts to-day.” Aged, faded missive of some neighboring housewife to an early milkman.
He tried again, lowering the sticky little stone slowly down, straddling the grating directly above the envelope. And this time the gummy weight settled nicely upon the prize.
“I’ll go home and get washed up and have supper,” cried Pee-wee excitedly; “and I’ll be at your house at seven o’clock, hey?”
Detaching the little envelope from the clinging stone, he took the liberty, in his excitement, of opening it for a reassuring glimpse of the precious tickets. Scarcely had he glanced at them when a look of bewilderment appeared upon his face. He scowled, puzzled, and inspected them still more closely. New York academy of design, they read. In a kind of trance, he read what followed: Tuesday evening, April 16th. Admit one. Exhibition of medieval painting and tapestries.
He looked down into the depths of the shaft which had yielded up these admission cards. “I fished up the wrong envelope,” he said.
“No, you didn’t,” said Emerson.
“What d’you mean,” Pee-wee demanded. “Do you know what they’re for?”
“Of course I do,” said Emerson. “They’re for the art exhibition in New York—medieval art.”
“What d’you mean, medieval art?”
“You’ll see when you go.”