what he is talking about.

Mr Longchamps opened the door of a little room leading out of the one we
were in, and beckoned us to follow. We found ourselves amid shelves and
shelves of pottery of all sorts; and two whole shelves--small ones--were
filled with the sort of jug we wanted.

'Well,' said the President, with a veiled menacing sort of smile, like a
wicked cardinal, 'which is it?'

Oswald said, 'I don't know.'

Alice said, 'I should know if I had it in my hand.'

The President patiently took the jugs down one after another, and Alice
tried to look inside them. And one after another she shook her head and
gave them back. At last she said, 'You didn't WASH them?'

Mr Longchamps shuddered and said 'No'.

'Then,' said Alice, 'there is something written with lead-pencil inside
both the jugs. I wish I hadn't. I would rather you didn't read it. I
didn't know it would be a nice old gentleman like you would find it.
I thought it would be the younger gentleman with the thin legs and the
narrow smile.'

'Mr Turnbull.' The President seemed to recognize the description
unerringly. 'Well, well--boys will be boys--girls, I mean. I won't be
angry. Look at all the "jugs" and see if you can find yours.'

Alice did--and the next one she looked at she said, 'This is one'--and
two jugs further on she said, 'This is the other.'

'Well,' the President said, 'these are certainly the specimens which I
obtained yesterday. If your uncle will call on me I will return them
to him. But it's a disappointment. Yes, I think you must let me look
inside.'

He did. And at the first one he said nothing. At the second he laughed.

'Well, well,' he said, 'we can't expect old heads on young shoulders.
You're not the first who went forth to shear and returned shorn. Nor, it
appears, am I. Next time you have a Sale of Antiquities, take care that
you yourself are not "sold". Good-day to you, my dear. Don't let the
incident prey on your mind,' he said to Alice. 'Bless your heart, I was
a boy once myself, unlikely as you may think it. Good-bye.'

We were in time to see the pigs bought after all.

I asked Alice what on earth it was she'd scribbled inside the beastly
jugs, and she owned that just to make the lark complete she had written
'Sucks' in one of the jugs, and 'Sold again, silly', in the other.

But we know well enough who it was that was sold. And if ever we have
any Antiquities to tea again, they shan't find so much as a Greek
wais