To her surprise, Nell Wiggin looked quickly around to be sure that no one was near, then she said: "I'd ought not to tell you, but I will if you'll keep it dark."

"Dark as the deepest dungeon," Roberta replied, much puzzled by her comrade's mysterious manner. The slight girl drew close. "He makes it behind that door that n.o.body's allowed to go through," she said in a low voice; then added, evidently wishing to be fair, "but that's nothing unusual. Lots of dealers make their antiques and the public goes on buying them knowing they may not be as old as the tags say. Here, now, are the old books, and at least they are honest."

Bobs uttered a cry of joy. "Oh, how I do wish I could have charge of this department," she said. "I adore old books."

There was a light in the pale face of little Miss Wiggin. "I do, too,"

she said. "That is, I love d.i.c.kens; I never read much else." Then, almost wistfully, she added: "I didn't have much chance to go to school, but once, where I went to live, I found an old set of d.i.c.kens' books that someone had left, and I've just read them over and over. I never go out nights and the people living in those books are such a lot of company for me."

Again Bobs felt a yearning tenderness for this frail girl, who was saying, "They're all the friends I've ever had, I guess."

Impulsively the new clerk exclaimed, "I'll be your friend, if you'll let me." Just then a strident voice called, "Miss Wiggin, forward!"

"You stay with the books," Nell said softly, "and I'll do the china."

Bobs watched the slight figure that was hurrying toward the front, and she sighed, with tears close to the hazel eyes, and in her heart was a prayer, "May I be forgiven for the selfish, heedless years I have lived.

But perhaps now I can make up for it. Surely I shall try."

Roberta had been told by Mr. Jewett that she must not reveal to anyone her real reason for being at the antique shop, and, as Mr. Queerwitz had no faith in the girl's ability to waylay a pilferer, he did not care to have Miss Nell Wiggin devote more time to teaching her the business of selling antiques. This information was conveyed by Miss Peerwinkle to Nell, who was told to stay away from the new clerk, with the added remark: "If she didn't get on to the ropes with one hour's showing, she's too stupid for this business, anyhow."

Why the head lady had taken such a very evident dislike to her, Bobs could not understand, for surely she was willing to do whatever she was told. Ah, well, she wasn't going to worry. "Worrying is what makes one old," she thought, as she mounted a small step-ladder on casters that one could push along the shelves. From the top of it she examined the books that were highest. Suddenly she uttered an exclamation of delight, then looked about quickly to be sure that she had not been heard. Customers in the front part of the store occupied the attention of the three clerks, so Roberta reached for a volume that had attracted her attention. It was indeed rare and old, so very old that she wondered that the covers did not crumble, and it had illumined letters. "Perhaps they were made by early monks," Bobs was thinking. She sat down on the ladder and began turning the fascinating pages that were yellow with age. Suddenly she was conscious that someone stood near her. She looked up to find the accusing gaze of the head clerk fixed upon her.

Bobs was startled into exclaiming: "Say, Miss Peerwinkle, a cat has nothing on you when it comes to walking softly, has it?"

The reply was frigidly given: "Miss Do-little," with emphasis, "you are supposed to dust the books, not read them; and what's more, that particular book is the rarest one in the whole collection. There's a mate to it somewhere, and when Mr. Queerwitz finds it, he can sell the two of them to Mr. Leonel Van Loon for one thousand dollars in cool cash."

Roberta was properly impressed, and replaced the book; then, taking a duster, she proceeded to tidy her department.

At eleven o'clock Bobs wondered if she ought to wander about the shop and watch the occasional customer. This she did, and was soon in the neighborhood of Miss Wiggin. "You're to go out to eat when I do," Nell told her.

"I'm glad to hear it," was the reply.

Promptly at noon Miss Wiggin beckoned and said: "Come, Miss Dolittle, be as quick as you can. We only have half an hour nooning, and every minute counts. I go around to my room. You might buy something, then come with me and eat it."

Roberta could hardly believe what she had heard. "Only half an hour to wash, go somewhere, eat your lunch and get back?

"Why the mad rush?" she exclaimed. "Doesn't Mr. Queerwitz know there's all eternity ahead of us?"

A wan smile was the only answer. Miss Nell Wiggin was not wasting time.

She led the way to the cloakroom, donned her outdoor garments, and then, taking her new friend by the hand, she said: "Hold fast to me. We'll take a short cut through the back stockroom. It's black as soot in there when it isn't lit up. Mr. Queerwitz won't let us burn lights except for business reasons."

Bobs found herself being led through a room so dark that she could barely see the two walls of boxes that were piled high on either side, with a narrow path between.

They soon emerged upon a back alley, where huge cans of refuse stood, and where trucks were continually pa.s.sing up and down or standing at the back entrances of stores loading and unloading.

"Now walk as fast as you can," little Miss Wiggin said, as away she went toward Fourth Avenue, with Roberta close behind her. If Bobs had known what was going to happen that noon, she would not have left the shop.

CHAPTER IX.

A HURRIED LUNCH

Fourth Avenue having been reached, Miss Wiggin darted into a corner delicatessen store. "What will you have for your lunch?" she turned to ask of her companion. "I'm going to get five cents' worth of hot macaroni and a dill pickle."

"Double the order," Bobs said, and then she added to the man who stood behind the counter: "I'll also take two ham sandwiches and two chocolate eclairs."

"Oh, Miss Dolittle, isn't that too much for you to spend at noon?" This anxiously from pale, starved-looking little Miss Wiggin.

At the Vandergrift table there had always been many courses with a butler to serve, and in her heedless, thoughtless way, Bobs had supposed that everyone, everywhere, had enough to eat.

It was a queer little smile that she turned toward her new friend as she replied: "This being our first lunch together, let's have a spread." Then she paid the entire bill, which came to forty cents. "No," she a.s.sured the protesting Nell Wiggin, "I won't offer to treat every day. After this we'll go Dutch, honest we will! Now lead the way."

Again in the thronged street, little Miss Wiggin turned with an apology: "Maybe I oughtn't to've asked you to come to my room. Probably you're used to something better."

"Don't you believe it!" Bobs replied cheerily. "I live in the shabbiest kind of a dump." She did not add that she had not as yet resided on New York's East Side for more than twenty-four hours, at the longest, and that prior to that her home on Long Island had been palatial. She was eager to know how girls who had never had a chance were forced to live.

Miss Wiggin was descending rather rickety steps below the street level.

"Is your room in the bas.e.m.e.nt?" Bobs asked, trying to keep from her voice the shock that this revelation brought to her. No wonder there were no roses in the wan cheeks of little Miss Wiggin.

"Yes," was the reply, "the caretakers of the buildings all live in the bas.e.m.e.nts, you know, and Mrs. O'Malley, the janitor of this one, is a widow with two little boys. She had a room to rent cheap and so I took it."

Then she led the way through a long, narrow, dark hall. Once Bobs touched the wall and she drew back shuddering, for the stones were cold and clammy.

The little room to which Bobs was admitted opened only on an air shaft, but there was sunlight entering its one small window; too, there were white curtains and a geranium in bloom on the sill.

"It's always pleasantest at noon, for that's the only time that the sun reaches my window," the little hostess said, as she hurriedly drew a sewing table out from behind the small cot bed, unfolded it and placed the lunch thereon. Bobs' gaze wandered about the room, which was so small that its three pieces of furniture seemed to crowd it. In one corner was a bamboo bookcase which held the real treasure of Miss Wiggin. Row after row of books in uniform dark red binding. They were all there--Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Old Curiosity Shop and the rest of them.

"Nights it would be sort of dismal sitting in here alone if 'twasn't for those books," the little hostess confessed. "That's a real good kerosene lamp I have. It makes a bright light. I curl up on the couch as soon as my supper's eaten, and then I forget where I really am, for I go wherever the story takes me. Come, everything is ready," she added, "and since fifteen minutes of our time is gone already, we'd better eat without talking."

This they did, and Gloria would have said that they gulped their food, but what can one do with but half an hour for nooning?

They didn't even stop to put away the table. "I'll leave it ready for my supper tonight," Miss Wiggin said, as she fairly flew down the dark, damp bas.e.m.e.nt hall.

Five minutes later they were entering the alley door of the antique shop which had so fine an entrance on Fifth Avenue.

"May the Fates save us!" Bobs exclaimed. "I do believe we are one minute late. Are we in for execution or dismissal?"

But that one minute had evidently escaped the watchful eye of Miss Peerwinkle, for, when Nell Wiggin and Roberta entered the shop, they saw the portly Mr. Queerwitz pacing up and down and in tragic tones he was exclaiming: "Gone! Gone! I should have locked it up, but I didn't think anyone else knew the value of it." Then, wheeling around, he demanded of Bobs: "What good are you, anyway, in the book department? One of the rarest books I possess was stolen this morning right beneath your very eyes, and----"

Little Nell Wiggin, usually so timid, stepped forward and said: "It must have happened while we were out at lunch. It couldn't have been while we were here, for n.o.body at all went down to the books."

Mr. Queerwitz paid no more attention to the words of little Miss Wiggin than he would at that moment to the buzzing of a fly.

"Dolittle, well-named, I should say," he remarked scathingly. How Roberta wished that she had chosen a busier sounding name, but the deed was done.

One couldn't be changing one's name every few hours, but----

Her revery was interrupted by: "What have you to say for yourself?"