Polly and Her Friends Abroad Part 8

Shortly after the party left, a knock came upon Jimmy's door and he gruffly called out: "Come in!"

Mrs. Alexander tip-toed in and immediately began to condole with him.

"Poor Jimmy! I feel so concerned over you. Just let me mother you, if you are ill!"

Jimmy growled: "I'm not ill-just sleepy!"

"All the same, you dear boy, something must be troubling you to make you feel so ill-natured," said she, pointedly.

"I should think it would!" snapped he, the patch-work quilt drawn up close about his chin so that only his face showed.

"Then do tell me if I can help in any way. My purse and heart are both wide open for you to help yourself, whenever you like."

Jimmy was young, and had not yet realized that independence was a great privilege. But he had learned that poverty was not the virtue people called it. It meant doing without pleasant things, and constantly sacrificing what seemed most desirable. He knew Mrs. Alexander would buy her way into his good graces if she could, and he was just angry enough, and sulky at fate, to tempt him to take advantage of her offer. Even though he might regret it shortly after.

"Well, to confess-as I would to my own mother-I'm broke! And it's no pleasant state of affairs on a long trip like this one, with a lot of pretty girls wanting to be treated to candy, and other things," growled Jimmy.

"Poor dear boy!" sighed Mrs. Alexander, seating herself on the edge of the great antique bed, and patting his head. "Don't I understand? Now let me be your other mother, for a while, and give you a little spending money. When it is gone, just wink at me and I will know you need more.

If there were a _number_ of young men to a.s.sume the expenses of treating the crowd of girls with you, I wouldn't think of suggesting this. But I remember that you are but one with a galaxy of beauties who look for entertainment from you."

Thus Mrs. Alexander cleverly managed to induce Jimmy to believe he was justified in taking her money, and as she got up to go out, she said: "I'll leave a little roll on the dresser. If you feel able to get up and come out, you will see that you will feel better for the effort and the air."

So saying, she left a packet under the military brushes on the dresser and, smiling rea.s.suringly at the youth, went out. But she did not leave the closed door at once; she waited, just outside, until she heard him spring from the bed and rush over to the place where the money had been left. Then she nodded her head satisfactorily, and crept downstairs.

Jimmy counted out the notes left for him, and gasped. He hadn't seen so much money at one time, since the war began! And he felt a sense of grat.i.tude, then repulsion, to the ingratiating person who thus paid him for his good-will.

Mr. Fabian and his party were examining the old cathedral, with its two Norman towers and the western front rich with carvings, without a thought of the two they had left at the Inn. Having completed the visit to the edifice, they all returned to see the old inn known as "Moll's Coffee-house."

"It was at this famous place that many of England's noted people used to gather," said Mr. Fabian, as they crossed the green. "Sir Walter Raleigh was a frequent visitor here, as well as many historical men."

As they came to the place, they found Mrs. Alexander and Jimmy seated on a worm-eaten bench, chatting pleasantly about the ancient room they were in. But no one knew that the conversation had been suddenly switched from a personal topic, the moment the sight-seers appeared to interrupt the tete-a-tete.

Mrs. Alexander got up and crossed the room to meet the other members in the party, saying as she came: "I hear how folks used to come here and drink coffee-and a record is kept of who they were. It must be nice to have folks remember you after you are gone. I wish someone would say, years after I am dead, 'Mrs. Alexander was in this house, once'."

"A lot of good that would do you, then!" laughed Dodo.

"I was just telling Jimmy that it would be a lot of satisfaction to us all if he became famous and this trip of ours was spoken of in years to come. He's got a t.i.tle in the family, you know, and the English think so much of that! The inn-keeper across the green might be glad to remember how Sir Jimmy stopped here when he toured England with his friends from America."

Everyone laughed at the silly words but Mrs. Alexander was really in earnest. Her imagination had jumped many of the obstacles placed in her way, and she saw herself as Jimmy's mother-in-law and revered as such by the English public.

During their tete-a-tete at Old Moll's Coffee-house, she had impressed it upon Jimmy's mind, that not a soul was to know about the money. And she extracted a promise that he would call upon her for more if he needed it. Feeling like a cad, still he promised, for he was in dire need of money to be able to appear like a liberal host.

"Well, Jimmy-are you ready to start along the road?" asked Angela, suspicious of this sudden change of front in Jimmy for the obnoxious rich woman.

"Yes, if Mrs. Alex and everyone else is," agreed he.

"Mrs. Alex?" queried his sister, pointedly.

"Oh yes, folks! Dodo's mother says 'Alexander' is such a lot to say, that she prefers us to cut it to Mrs. Alex. Every one else has nicknames, so why not nick Alexander?" said Jimmy.

The others laughed, and Mr. Alexander said quaintly: "I always liked that name Alexander 'cause it made me feel sort of worth while. I might be no account in looks, but 'Alexander' gives me back-bone, 'cause I only have to remember 'Alexander the Great'!"

His friends laughed heartily and Mr. Fabian said: "What's in a name, when you yourself are such a good friend?"

"Mebbe so, but all the same, I'll miss that name. 'Alex' looks too much like a tight fit for my size. But I s'pose it's got to be as the missus says!"

Now the cars sped through the charming country of rural England, with its ever-changing scenes, than which there is nothing more beautiful and peaceful. Cattle browsed upon the hillocks, tiny hamlets were spotlessly neat and orderly, the roads were edged with trimmed hedges, and even in the woods, where wild-plants grew, there was no debris to be found. It was all a picture of neatness.

On this drive, the girls were made happy by being able to buy several pieces of old Wedgwood from the country people. Polly also secured a chubby little bowl with wonderful medallions upon its sides, and Eleanor found a "salt-glaze" pitcher.

"I believe lots of the people in the country, here, will gladly sell odd bits if we only have time to stop and bargain," said Polly, hugging her bowl.

"And lots of them will swear their furniture is genuine antique even if they bought it a year ago from an installment firm," laughed Jimmy.

"Oh, they wouldn't do that!" gasped Polly.

"Wouldn't they! Just try it, and see how they rook your pocket-book,"

retorted Jimmy.

"Why James Osgood! Where ever did you learn such words-'rook' and the like?" gasped his sister.

"Oh, I'm going to be a thorough American, now," laughed Jimmy, recklessly. "Mrs. Alex has agreed to take me West with her on her return, and let me run a ranch in Colorado."

"What will mother say to that?" wailed Angela, as this was not what she had hoped for.

"Don't worry, Angela dear," quickly said Mrs. Alexander, soothingly.

"Jimmy is only joking. I told him about our ranches but I have no idea of taking him away from England." Neither had she.

At Glas...o...b..ry the tourists stopped to see the "Inne of ye Pilgrims"

which proved to be very old and most interesting. Here King Henry the VIII and Abbot Whiting's rooms are maintained with the old furnis.h.i.+ngs as in that long-past day.

Pictures were taken of the quaint Gothic carving on the front of the building, and then Mr. Fabian led them to inspect the ruined abbey which King Arthur favored above all other spots.

As the cars sped over the good hard roads, past little cottages with the most attractive thatched-roofs whose dormer windows were set deep back in the thatch, the tourists were delighted.

"Such lovely little places," sighed Ruth, as she admired the rose-vines climbing high upon the roof of a place.

"Just big enough for two!" whispered Jimmy, for his "heart's desire" was beside him on the front seat, once more.

"I wonder why American architects do not copy these lovely thatched roofs for us, more generally," wondered Polly.

"Our climate would not permit them," explained Mr. Fabian. "In England, the damp warm climate seldom changes to bitter cold, and the inmates of these cottages live in comparative comfort in the winter. In the States, they'd be frozen out in no time."

Bath was the next stop, and Mr. Fabian sought out the famous Abbey, at once. But Ruth had come under the spell of Jimmy's ardor again, and remained with him when the others walked away. Mrs. Alexander sensed the plot and also remained behind. But Mr. Alexander called to her when she would have joined the two young ones.

"See here-don't you go interferin' there. If them two want to keep comp'ny why should you care?" whispered he.

"They won't, that's all. That young man is for Dodo!"