looked at Adele.

"If Boy breaks down," she said sweetly, "I'll lend you my ox. He's
simply splendid at parcels."

"You've got to find something to do up first," said I. "This isn't
Paris."

A colour was lent to my foreboding within the hour.

As we sat down to luncheon--

"Yes," said Berry, "my vixen and I have spent a delightful morning.
We've been through fourteen shops and bought two amethyst necklets and
a pot of marmalade. I subsequently dropped the latter in the Place
Royale, so we're actually twelve down."

"Whereabouts in the Place Royale?" I inquired.

"Just outside the Club. Everybody I knew was either going in or coming
out, so it went very well indeed."

There was a gust of laughter.

"N-not on the pavement?" whimpered Jill.

"On the pavement," said Daphne. "It was dreadful. I never was so
ashamed. Of course I begged him to pick it up before it ran out.
D'you think he'd do it? Not he. Said it was written, and it was no
good fighting against Fate, and that he'd rather wash his hands of it
than after it, and that sort of stuff. Then Nobby began to lick it
up.... But for Fitch, I think we should have been arrested.
Mercifully, we'd told him to wait for us by the bandstand, and he saw
the whole thing."

"It's all very fine," said her husband. "It was I who furnished and
suggested the use of the current issue of _Le Temps_, and, without
that, Fitch couldn't have moved. As it was, one sheet made a shroud,
another a pall, and Nobby's beard and paws were appropriately wiped
upon the ever-burning scandal of 'Reparations.'"

"I gather," said Jonah, "that the dissolution of the preserve turned an
indifferent success into a howling failure. Of course, I haven't seen
the necklets but..."

"I can't pretend it's easy," said Daphne. "It isn't that there aren't
any shops----"

"No," said Berry emphatically, "it isn't that."

"--but somehow... Still, if we go on long enough, we shall find
something."

"That's it," said her husband. "We're going to put our backs into it
this afternoon. After we've done another twelve shops without buying
anything, we're going to have police protection. Not that we need it,
you know, but it'll improve my morale."

"If only Sally was here," said Jill, "she could have told us where to
go."

"If only her sailor would turn up," said Adele, "we might be able to
get all our presents from him."

"That's an idea," said Jonah. "What was the merchant's nam