Fluff ran down several streets, till she was out of breath, and then she fell into a little trot; but first she gave the half-penny to a ragged boy, and begged him earnestly never to tell stories; and after that she asked him the way to Belgravia. Not getting a lucid answer from him, as he only told her that he had been a cripple from his birth and had sold lucifers ever since, which, being brimstone, was bad for the rheumatics, Fluff told him that she would have repeated the whole story of Ananias and Sapphira to him, only she had no time, and then she resumed her walk with much dignity.
And the method of it was this—if method it could be called which had, in its sidelong movements, the similitude of a crab. First she went into every baker’s shop she passed, and, shaking her head sorrowfully at the fresh currant-buns on the counters, asked in a confidential whisper the quickest and shortest way to Belgravia; and when they wished to know what part, or asked her business, in a kindly way, she pursed up her mouth and said that was not the question, and would they please confine themselves to facts, or some such speech, in her odd abrupt way.
And she looked such a little lady as she spoke, and held her little head up so proudly, that most of them answered her with civility; and one big baker’s boy, just starting on his afternoon round, said he would see her past the dangerous crossing in the next street, and put her a little on her way. Fluff said she was very much obliged to him, and trotted confidingly by his side, adapting her conversation to her hearer as she thought best, for she enlarged in a rambling way on the Miracle of the Loaves, and told him what her teacher said on the subject of the fishes; and then she became confidential, and explained to him that she bore an innocent partiality for the moist peely bits of soft crusts that one could pare off a loaf without showing a sad deficiency, and how she always liked to take in the bread at Mrs. Watkins’s for the purpose; and lastly, she told him in a weary little voice that she was going to see grandpapa, who lived in a big house in Belgravia, but that she was getting very tired, for she had a bone in her leg—two bones, she thought—and might she sit please on the top of his little cart to rest her poor legs when he went into the next house?
The baker’s boy was a good-natured fellow, but, as he expressed it afterward, he thought her the rummiest little lady he had ever met; indeed, he confided his suspicions to a grocer’s lad that she “was a bit cracky;” but he let her sit on his cart for all that, and trundled her the length of two or three streets; and further revived her drooping spirits by a dab of hot brown bread, scooped skillfully out of the side of a loaf which, as he said, would never show.
After that they got facetious, and admired a Punch and Judy show together, and parted with deep regret, when a policeman desired them to move on.
Fluff began to feel rather lonely after this. It was getting late, she was afraid, and those little legs of hers ached dreadfully; but she fell in at the park gates with a playful flower-girl, who ran a race with her, basket and all, and then stood and jeered in broad Irish because she was beaten, while Fluff sat down, sulky and exhausted, on a bench under the trees.
It was nearly tea-time now, she thought; in another hour or so Fern would be sending the old crier after her. She wondered how she was to get back. She was very thirsty, and felt half inclined to cry; and then it struck her that the large splendid-looking building opposite might be Belgrave House, and she ran up to a workman just passing and asked him.
“No,” he said, eying her wondering, “that was not Belgrave House, it was in the next square;” and when she heard that she clapped her hands joyfully, and went and drank out of a little iron bowl in company with a sweep. She asked him if she might drink first, and he said, “Oh, laws, yes! you ain’t near so smutty as me,” which speech Fluff took as a compliment. But she had fallen down twice, and her nice white frock had got unsightly patches of green on it.
But she felt as though her troubles were over when she stood in front of Belgrave House, its many windows shining like gold.
What a grand place it was—finer than the Crystal Ball Palace where Princess Dove and Prince Merrydew lived; and, oh dear, what joy, the door was open!