Secret History Revealed By Lady Peggy O'Malley

								

behind me, as if to stop the bell at any cost. The shop smelt of moth
powder, old leather, musty paper, and hair oil.
"Well, my little girl, what do you want?" inquired Nebuchadnezzar, with
the kind of lisp that turns a rat into a yat.
Little girl, indeed! To be called a "little girl" by a thing like that,
and asked what I wanted in that second-hand Hebrew tone, made me boil
for half a second. Then, suddenly, I saw that it was funny, and I almost
giggled as I imagined myself haughtily explaining that I had reached the
age of sixteen, to say nothing of being the daughter of two or three
hundred earls. I didn't care a tuppenny anything whether he mistook me
for nine or ninety; but I did begin to feel that it wouldn't be pleasant
unrolling my tissue-paper parcel and bargaining for money under the eyes
and ears of the other man.
They were very nice eyes and ears. Already I'd had time to notice that;
for even in these days, when men aren't supposed to be as indispensable
to females as they were in Edwardian or Victorian and earlier ages, I
don't think it's entirely obsolete for a girl to learn more about a
man's looks in three seconds than she picks up about another woman's
frock in two.
This man wasn't what most girls of sixteen would call young; but I am
different from most girls because I've always had to be a sort of law
unto myself, in order not to become a family footstool. I've had to make
up my mind about everything or risk my brain degenerating into a bath
sponge; and one of the things I made it up about early was that I didn't
like boys or nuts. The customer in the curiosity shop, to whom the
proprietor was showing perfect ducks of Chelsea lambs plastered against
green Chelsea bushes, was, maybe, twenty-eight or thirty, a great age
for a woman, but not so bad for a man; and I wished to goodness he would
buy or not buy a lamb and go forth about other business. However, I
couldn't indefinitely delay answering that question addressed to "little
girl."
"I want to show you a point-lace scarf," I snapped. Nebuchadnezzar's
understudy squeezed himself out from behind the counter, and lumbered a
step or two nearer me, moving not straight ahead, but from side to side,
as tables do for spiritualists.
"We don't mend lace here, if that's what you've come for, my child," he
patronized me.
"It doesn't need to be mended," said I. "It's beautiful lace. It's to be
sold."
"Oa--oh," he exploded with a cockney drawl, and a rude look coming into
his eyes which he'd kept out while there was hope that the dusty,
blown-about little thing might turn into a customer. "Well! Let's see!
But I've got more old lace on hand now than I know what to do with."
As I unrolled layers of tissue paper which seemed to rustle loudly out
of sheer spite, I was conscious that the customer had sauntered away as
far as possible, and was gazing at some old prints on the wall which
gave him an excuse to turn his back to us. I thought this sweetly