omething to tell
black Billy about, Norah!"

"He'd only say Plenty!" said Norah, laughing. "Look--there's Dad!"

They turned to meet a tall grey man who came swinging across the grass
with a step as light as his son's. David Linton greeted them with a
smile.

"I knew I should find you as near as you could get to the horses," he
said. "This place is almost a rest-cure after Harrod's; I never find
myself in that amazing shop without wishing I had a bell on my neck,
so that I couldn't get lost. And I always take the wrong lift and
find myself among garden tools when all I want is collars."

"Well, they have lifts round every corner: you want a special
lift-sense not to take the wrong one," Norah defended him.

"Yes, and when you ask your way anywhere in one of these fifty-acre
London shops they say, 'Through the archway, sir,' and disappear: and
you look round you frantically, and see about seventeen different
archways, and there you are," Wally stated. "So you plunge into them
all in turn, and get hopelessly lost. But it's rather fun."

"I'd like it better if they didn't call me 'Moddam,'" said Norah.
"'Shoes, Moddam? Certainly, Moddam; first to the right, second to the
left, lift Number fifteen, fifth floor and the attendant will direct
you!' Then you stagger into space, wishing for a wet towel round your
head!"

"I could almost believe," said her father, regarding her gravely,
"that you would prefer Cunjee, with one street, one general store, one
blacksmith's, and not much else at all."

"Why, of course I do," Norah laughed. "At least you can't get lost
there, and you haven't got half a day's journey from the oatmeal place
to the ribbon department: they'll sell you both at the same counter,
and a frying-pan and a new song too! Think of the economy of time and
boot-leather! And Mr. Wilkins knows all about you, and talks to you
like a nice fat uncle while he wraps up your parcels. And if you're
on a young horse you needn't get off at all--all you have to do is to
coo-ee, and Mr. Wilkins comes out prepared to sell you all his shop on
the footpath. If _that_ isn't more convenient than seventeen archways
and fifty-seven lifts, then I'd like to know what is!"

"Moddam always had a great turn of eloquence, hadn't she?" murmured
Wally, eyeing her with respect. Whereat Norah reddened and laughed,
and accused him of sentiments precisely similar to her own.

"I think we're all much the same," Jim said. "