Paddington by Unknown Author

Author:Unknown Author
Language: fra
Format: epub

“Marmalade it shall be,” he said, pressing the button.

“I think,” said Paddington, “if you don’t mind, I’d rather use the stairs.”

Chapter Five

Paddington and the ‘Old Master’

Paddington soon settled down and became one of the family. In fact, in no time at ail it was difficult to imagine what life had been like without him. He made himself useful about the house and the days passed quickly. The Browns lived near the Porto-bello Road where there was a big market and quite often, when Mrs Brown was busy, she let him go out to do the shopping for her. Mr Brown made a shopping trolley for him—an old basket on wheels with a handle for steering it.

Paddington was a good shopper and soon became well known to ail the traders in the market. He was

very thorough and took the job of shopping seri-ously. He would press the fruit to see that it had the right degree of firmness, as Mrs Bird had shown him, and he was always on the look-out for bar-gains. He was a popular bear with the traders and most of them went out of their way to save the best things of the day for him.

“That bear gets more for his money than anyone I know,” said Mrs Bird. “I don’t know how he gets away with it, really I don’t. It must be the mean streak in him.”

‘Tm not mean,” said Paddington, indignantly. ‘Tm just careful, that’s ail.”

“Whatever it is,” replied Mrs Bird, “you’re worth your weight in gold.”

Paddington took this remark very seriously, and spent a long time weighing himself on the bathroom scales. Eventually he decided to consult his friend, Mr Gruber, on the subject.

Now Paddington spent a lot of his time looking in shop Windows, and of ail the Windows in the Portobello Road, Mr Gruber’s was the best. For one thing it was nice and low so that he could look in without having to stand on tiptoe, and for another, it was full of interesting things. Old pièces of furni-ture, medals, pots and pans, pictures; there were so many things it was difficult to get inside the shop, and old Mr Gruber spent a lot of his time sitting in a deckchair on the pavement. Mr Gruber, in his turn, found Paddington very interesting and soon they had become great friends. Paddington often stopped there on his way home from a shopping expédition and they spent many hours discussing South America, where Mr Gruber had been when he was a boy. Mr Gruber usually had a bun and a cup of cocoa in the morning for what he called his ‘elevenses,’ and he had taken to sharing it with Paddington. “There’s nothing like a nice chat over a bun and a cup of cocoa,” he used to say, and Paddington, who liked ail three, agreed with him— even though the cocoa did make his whiskers go a funny colour.

Paddington was always interested in bright things and he had consulted Mr Gruber one morning on the subject of his Peruvian centavos.

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