He looked at her very hard through his spectacles as he said this, and Freda agreed at once.
“Very well,” said the chemist. “You’ve come to me just in time. When I close this shop to-night I’m never coming back, and next week they’re going to start pulling it down. But I’ve got just one dose of medicine for naughty children left, and you shall have it now.”
Then he took Freda round behind the counter, and she watched him while he poured a little from one bottle, and a few drops from another, and a teaspoonful from a third, and just a dash from a fourth. And he mixed them all together until the stuff fizzed and turned pink, and then he poured most of it away and gave the rest to Freda.
“If you drink this,” he said, “it will make you good for twenty-four hours.”
She drank it down, and it tasted delicious.
“Thank you very much,” she said. “And here’s the sixpence.”
“Thank you, miss,” said the old chemist. “And here’s your change.”
And he gave Freda half-a-crown from his pocket, and she ran back home as fast as she could and found the front door still open. So she ran right up to the nursery, and she dropped the half-crown into the china pig, and just at that moment the nurse came down from the bathroom.
“Why, Miss Freda,” she said; “how quiet you’ve been.”
“I cannot see,” said Freda, “why any child should ever be anything but quiet. Can you, my dear nurse?”