‘Why, sir,’ said the boy, ‘if you please, I want a nice doll for my sister, and I will give you this large Twelfth-cake that I have in paper here for a good doll.’
‘Let me see the cake,’ said the master. ‘So, how did you get this cake?’
‘My grandfather is a pastry-cook, sir,’ answered the boy, ‘and my sister and I live with him. I went to-day to take home seven Twelfth-cakes. But the family at one house had all gone away out of the country, and locked up the house, and forgotten to send for the cake; and grandfather told me that I and my sister might have it.’
‘What is your name?’
‘Thomas Plummy, sir; and I live in Bishopsgate street, near the Flower Pot.’
‘Very well, Thomas Plummy; you may choose any doll you fancy out of that case.’
Here some time elapsed; and while the boy was choosing, the master continued his slow walk to and fro from one room to the other, with the brown paper cocked hat, which he had forgotten to take off, still upon his head. It was so very light that he did not feel it, and did not know it was there. At last the boy declared he did not like any of the dolls in the case, and so went from one case to another, always refusing those the master offered him; and when he did choose one himself, the master said it was too expensive. Presently the master said he had another box full of good dolls in the back room, and in he came, looking so grave in his cocked hat, and beginning to open a long wooden box. But the boy had followed him to the door, and peeping in, suddenly called out, ‘There, sir! that one! that is the doll for my cake!’ and he pointed his little brown finger up at me.
‘Aha!’ said the master, ‘that one is also too expensive; I cannot let you have that.’
However, he took me down, and while the boy was looking at me with evident satisfaction, as if his mind was quite made up, the master got a knife and pushed the point of it into the side of the cake, just to see if it was as good inside as it seemed to be on the outside. During all this time he never once recollected that he had got on the brown paper cocked hat.
‘Now,’ said the master, taking me out of the boy’s hand, and holding me at arm’s length, ‘you must give me the cake and two shillings besides for this doll. This is a young lady of a very superior make, is this doll. Made by one of the first makers. The celebrated Sprat, the only maker, I may say, of this kind of jointed dolls. See! all the joints move—all work in the proper way; up and down, backwards and forwards, any way you please. See what lovely blue eyes; what rosy cheeks and lips; and what a complexion on the neck, face, hands, and arms! The hair is also of the most beautiful kind of delicate light-brown curl that can possibly be found. You never before saw such a doll, nor any of your relations. It is something, I can tell you, to have such a doll in a family; and if you were to buy her, she would cost you a matter of twelve shillings!’