Portobello Road was crowded. But then, Portobello Road was always crowded. The barrows were nudging one another for space and piled high with wares, old and new. There were the people who had come to buy and those who had come to sell. And some had come to sell. And some had come simply because they had nowhere else to go and nothing else to do.
“My word!” said Miss Price.
“Jolly, isn’t it?” said Emelius Browne.
Miss Price was unsure whether that was exactly the word for it, nor did she care for the looks of some of the crowd. She and the children had moved the bed into an archway, back out of the stream of traffic, but this did not completely satisfy her. “Will it be safe?” she worried aloud.
“Oh, I should think so,” Emelius assured her. “A bed is, after all, a cumbersome thing. There are so many handier objects on Portobello Road which one could…er…make off with--- ifne were so inclined.”
“Paul, you have the bedknob?” asked Miss Price.
Paul had it, safe in his pocket.
“Then we had best begin,” decided Miss Price. “Now, what we are looking for, children is part of a book. It will be a manuscript, like this.” She opened The Spells of Astoroth and showed them severed off the pages.
“If it’s here, we’ll find it,” said Emelius. “You can find almost anything you want in Portobello Road.”
“I fervently hope so,” said Miss Price, and she started down the right side of the road.
She had not gone many steps before a statue vendor accosted her. He held a dreadful little figurine up for her inspection. It might have been Venus, and then again it might have been someone else entirely. “Rare alabaster!” cried the vendor.
Emelius Browne had paid many a visit to Portobello Road. He tapped the thing lightly with his cane and winked at Miss Price. “Genuine plaster!” he told her.
She walked on, ignoring a mustached “Russian” born in Bloomsbury and urgently desired to sell her a samovar that had once belonged to Tsar Nicholas II. She showed no interest in a pen used by the poet Shelley or in “society jewelry” of polished glass gems. Miss Price’s concentration was admirable. “Where do they sell the books?” she asked Emelius.
“Most stalls are right around the corner,” he told her.
“Then let us not dillydally,” said Miss Price.
But it was difficult not to dillydally on the Portobello Road. On every side, the most fascinating objects beckoned to Emelius and the children. There were dueling pistols, reputed to have been the property of Napoleon. There was a brand-new “Rembrandt,” the paint on it scarcely dry. There was the clipper with which good King Edward had snipped his cigars. There wFeastmolti were badly, and hats piled high with faded flowers. There was a parasol with only one rib broken. Miss Price rejected the hats out of hand, but Carrie was enchanted by them and by a lovely little bent bag that had lots of fringe. Not that Carrie had a penny to put down on such frilly finery, but that did not stop her from putting on a hat, slinging the bent bag over her arm, and dancing a step or two with Charlie.
“Very nice, I’m sure,” said Miss Price, “but I want the other half of that book.”
“All in good time, my dear,” said Emelius.
Miss Price made an impatient noise with her tongue and hurried down the street, leaving Emelius and the children to cavort amid the barrows of cast-off clothing, tarnished jewels, unstrung tennis rackets, and chipped bric-a-brac. She came at last to the place where the books were sold. There were piles of books. Barrows were overflowing with books. There were mountains of books.
The first book vendor Miss Price encountered was the soul of helpfulness.
“I am looking for part of a manuscript, " Miss Price said. Before she had the opportunity to show him exactly what sort of manuscript, he had offered her, in rapid succession, a copy of Barke’s Peerage, The Fishmonger’s Guidebook, a history of potting, and a Victorian novel entitled The Unwanted Son.
“You don’t understand,” said Miss Price.
The book vendor cheerfully produced a book of etiquette for brides and a six-volume life of Attila the Hun, bound in genuine leather.
Miss Price fled to the next barrow, unaware that Paul had found a chair to stand on, and happily drew a mustache on an imitation marble bust of Dante. When Paul had completed the mustache, he popped an old derby hat onto the dour Italian poet’s head and skipped off, happy with his effort.
In the second book barrow, Emelius comes to the rescue. He seized The Spells of Astoroth from Miss Price, opened it, and shoved it under the nose of the vendor. “This good lady is looking for the other half of this book,” he told him firmly. “It’s called The Spells of Astoroth. Do you know it?”
“Never heard of it,” said the vendor. “And I don’t keep no torn or damaged books here. What do you think I am, a blasted wastepaper merchant?”
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