‘I’m sure people’s adopted children matter much more than their stupid French exercises!’ wailed Kitty. Her own French exercise had been so very stupid that Miss Miller had sentenced her to stay in after lessons and write it over again; and now Emmeline had announced her intention of going into the village to buy Diamond Jubilee’s food-supply. It was really too hard, Kitty felt, to be kept in to-day of all days.

‘Leave the old thing,’ suggested Micky; ‘very likely she’ll forget to ask for it to-morrow as she did for my declension.’

‘I can’t—she put me on my honour,’ said Kitty, kicking the table-leg angrily.

‘Putting people on their honour is a horridly mean dodge,’ growled Micky.

‘I wonder whether, when people wanted to go lovely secret expeditions to take food to Prince Charlie, they ever had to do stupid exercises instead?’ said Kitty, giving another vicious kick to the table.
 

At that moment Emmeline entered, in hat and gloves. ‘I’ve taken the extra money-box money,’ she told them, breathlessly; ‘it’s two shillings and ninepence. That ought to last him nearly three weeks. About a shilling a week is all we can reckon on, I’m afraid, though it doesn’t seem much even for Omnibus Nuts. To be sure, there’s birthday money, but that won’t be yet, and even when we get it, it will be wanted for bedclothes and things. If only we could earn some more, somehow!’

‘Diamond Jubilee shall have all my egg-money,’ said Kitty eagerly. She had a little family of bantams, and was allowed to sell the eggs to the cook.

‘But there have been hardly any eggs lately,’ said Emmeline.

‘There’s only one hen now Whitey’s dead,’ said Kitty, rather injured. ‘I’m sure Specky does her best. It’s such a pity that last set of eggs Whitey hatched all turned out gentlemen. If only they had been ladies we might have had heaps of eggs.’

‘What are Omnibus Nuts, Emmeline?’ asked Micky five minutes later, as they were ‘ralking’ to the village. (‘Ralking’ was a word of their own used to describe a peculiar cross between walking and running, specially invented by Micky for occasions like coming back from Church, when running was forbidden.)

[124]

‘Oh, they’re a wonderful new food that’s just been invented, and that’s ever so much cheaper than any of the ordinary foods. A person could manage to live on them for ninepence a week, it says,’ explained Emmeline. ‘They’re called Omnibus Nuts because they contain all the things which are of use in all the other foods we eat. I read all about them in that Vegetarian Magazine which came the other day. I think Diamond Jubilee ought really to do quite well if he has nine-pennyworth of Omnibus Nuts every week, and three-pennyworth of chocolate, which everyone says is about the most nourishing thing you can eat.’

‘Well, the chocolate will be decent, anyway,’ said Micky, with conviction.

A quarter of an hour’s ‘ralking’ brought them into the village.

‘Omnibus Nuts?’ said Mrs. Freeman, the fat and rather aggressive woman who kept the shop which supplied the Woodsleigh people with the less interesting wants of life—for exciting things like Christmas dinners or new hats they usually went into Eastwich—‘no, we don’t keep them. What’s more, I never heard tell of them.’

Emmeline’s face fell. According to the advertisement, all England was munching Omnibus Nuts; it was very tiresome of Woodsleigh to be the one exception.

[125]

‘How long would it take you to order them for us?’ she asked anxiously.

‘There’s the carrier coming from Eastwich to-morrow, but you’d not get such things there, I don’t suppose, and it wouldn’t be worth our while to order them special from London, not the little quantity you’d want. I suppose it isn’t Miss Bolton who’s ordering them, by the way?’

‘No, but we shall want a very large quantity,’ said Emmeline, drawing herself up—‘nine-pennyworth every week.’

‘Yes,’ chimed in Micky, ‘we shall want a quite enormous quantity—somebody’s going to live just on Omnibus Nuts and chocolate.’

‘Well I never!’ ejaculated Mrs. Freeman, while Emmeline frowned and pressed Micky’s foot hard.

‘Well, can you order them for us?’ she asked hastily, hoping by a return to more formal business relations to avert suspicions.

‘Well, I don’t know, I’m sure,’ said Mrs. Freeman, eyeing her customers doubtfully. ‘You see, we should have to order them special from London.’

‘I don’t suppose you would,’ said Emmeline, impatiently; ‘you’d be almost sure to get them in Eastwich. Besides, once you’d got them in stock, everybody in the village would be buying them—they’re like meat, and milk, and vegetables[126] all put together, it says, and they don’t cost hardly anything, and there’s no need to cook them.’

Mrs. Freeman looked stolidly incredulous, and Emmeline was fast losing what remained of her temper, when there came an unexpected interruption. A bright-looking youth suddenly poked his head out of the half-open door which divided the shop from an inner room, and joined in the conversation.

‘So you want Omnibus Nuts?’ he said. ‘Wonderful things! I know them well. Pity they’re out of stock. Still, a famous specialist has just discovered that monkey-nuts have exactly the same nutritious properties. Wouldn’t you like some of them?’

Mrs. Freeman abruptly turned her back on the children, and Emmeline, who could not see her grin, was much impressed by the young man’s long words and confident air.

‘You’re quite sure they’re as good as Omnibus Nuts?’ she asked, with only a slight touch of doubt in her voice. ‘They would really do instead of meat and vegetable and all the other things?’

‘I’ve lived on them myself for six weeks together, and felt as chirpy as could be at the end of the time,’ said the young man, gravely.

‘Well, then, I think they must be all right,’ decided Emmeline, with a sigh of relief ‘so we’ll take some, please.’

[127]

The last part of Emmeline’s sentence was addressed to Mrs. Freeman, but that lady had become suddenly and unaccountably busy with something in a dark corner of the shop, and it was the youth who came forward to serve them.

‘What quantity would you like?’ he asked, politely.

‘Well,’ began Emmeline, ‘I meant to have spent two-and-threepence on the Omnibus Nuts.’

‘You shall have our entire stock of monkey-nuts for two-and-threepence,’ said the young man, promptly. ‘It comes cheaper buying them in large quantities, you know; but, of course, we can sell you a smaller amount if you prefer.’

‘Oh, I think we’ll take them all. I know it comes cheaper in the long run,’ said Emmeline, feeling herself quite an experienced housekeeper.

She had often heard grown-up people talk of things being cheaper in the long run.

‘Shall we send them for you?’ asked the young man, as he reached down the jar containing the monkey-nuts.

‘Oh no, we’ll take them with us, please,’ said Emmeline hastily.

‘I’ll make two parcels of them then. They’d be rather a lot for one to carry. Now, is there anything else we can do for you, to-day?’ he added, as he poured out the monkey-nuts into two large, stout paper-bags.

[128]

‘I’ll have sixpennyworth of milk-chocolate please,’ said Emmeline. ‘I suppose it is more nourishing than plain chocolate?’

‘Most nourishing thing you can eat next to monkey-nuts, and, of course, Omnibus Nuts,’ said the youth cheerfully, as he served her with it.

‘George Albert, I’m ashamed of you—telling such crams!’ exclaimed Mrs. Freeman, as soon as the children had left the shop.

‘It was all in the way of business,’ said George Albert, ‘and I dare say monkey-nuts will do every bit as well as Omnibus Nuts, whatever they may be.’

Emmeline meantime gave Micky a little lecture as they walked away from the shop.

‘I do wish you would be more careful,’ she was saying. ‘Y............