“Why Bert! you shouldn’t do that,” exclaimed his father.

“I want to see what’s on the bottom of this bowl,” Bert said.  “It looks just like the one Miss Pompret lost, and if it’s the same I’ll get a hundred dollars!  Oh, look, it is the same!  Nan, I’ve found her lost sugar bowl!” cried Bert.

CHAPTER X

LOST

Several persons, dining at different tables, looked over to the one where the Bobbseys were.  They smiled as they heard Bert’s excited voice and saw him with the empty, overturned sugar bowl in his hand.

“Yes, this is the very one Miss Pompret lost!” Bert went on.  “If we can only find the milk pitcher now we’ll have both pieces and we can get the reward.  Look at the pitcher, Nan, and see if it’s got the dog—­I mean the lion—­on as this has.”

“Don’t dare turn over the milk!” cried Mrs. Bobbsey, as Nan reached for the pitcher.  “Spilling the sugar was bad enough.  Bert, how could you?”

“But, Mother, that’s the only way I could tell if it was Miss Pompret’s!” said the boy, while Flossie and Freddie looked curiously at the heap of square lumps of sugar where Bert had emptied them in the middle of the table.

“Let me see that bowl, Bert,” said Mr. Bobbsey a bit sternly.  “I think you are making a big mistake.  This isn’t at all like the kind of china Miss Pompret has.  Hers is much finer and thinner.”

“But this has got a lion on the bottom, and it’s in a circle just like the lion on Miss Pompret’s dishes!” said Bert, as he passed the bowl to his father.

“Are the letters there—­the letters ’J.W.’?” Nan asked eagerly.

“I don’t see them,” said Bert.  “But the lion is there.  Maybe the letters rubbed off, or maybe the tramp scratched ’em off.”

“No, Bert,” and Mr. Bobbsey shook his head, “this sugar bowl has a lion marked on the bottom, it is true, but it isn’t the same kind that is on Miss Pompret’s fine china.  This tableware is made in Trenton, New Jersey, and it is new—­it isn’t as old as that Miss Pompret showed you.  Now please pick up the sugar, and don’t act so quickly again.”

“Well, it looked just like her sugar bowl,” said Bert, as he began putting the square lumps back where they belonged.  A smiling waiter saw what had happened, and came up with a sort of silver shovel, finishing what Bert had started to do.

“Wouldn’t it have been great if we had really found her milk pitcher and sugar bowl?” asked Nan.  “If we had the hundred dollars we could buy lots of things in Washington.”

“Don’t count on it,” advised Mrs. Bobbsey.  “You will probably never see or hear of Miss Pompret’s missing china.  But I’m glad Bert overturned the sugar bowl and not the milk pitcher searching for the lion mark.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t upset the milk’” exclaimed Bert with a laugh.  “I knew the sugar wouldn’t hurt the tablecloth.”