“Oh, but we must get these even if we have to go home for more money!” exclaimed Nan.  “Look, Bert!  Right near those old brass candlesticks.  See that sugar bowl and pitcher?”

“I see ’em!” answered Bert.

“Don’t you know whose they are?” rapidly whispered Nan.  “Look at the way they’re painted?  And see!  On the bottom of the sugar bowl is a blue lion!  I can’t see the letters ‘J.  W.’ but they must be there.  Oh, Bert! don’t you know what this means?  Can’t you see?  Those are Miss Pompret’s missing dishes that she told us she’d give a hundred dollars to get back!  And oh, Bert! we’ve got to go in there and buy that sugar bowl and cream pitcher, and we can take ’em back to Miss Pompret at Lakeport, and she’ll give us a hundred dollars, and—­and—­”

But Nan was so excited and out of breath that she could not say another word.  She could just manage to hold Bert’s sleeve and point at the window of the second-hand shop.

At last Bert “woke up,” as he said afterward.  His eyes opened wider, and he stared with all his might at what Nan was pointing toward.  There, surely enough, among some old candlesticks, a pair of andirons, a bellows for blowing a fire, was a sugar bowl and cream pitcher.  And it needed only a glance to make Bert feel sure that the two pieces of china were decorated just as were Miss Pompret’s.

But there was something more than this.  The sugar bowl was turned over so that the bottom part was toward the street.  And on the bottom, plainly to be seen, was a circle of gold.  Inside the circle was a picture of some animal in blue, and Nan, at least, felt sure it was a blue lion.  As she had said, no letters could be seen, but they might be there.

“Don’t you see, Bert?” asked Nan, as her brother waited several seconds before speaking.  “Don’t you see that those are Miss Pompret’s dishes?”

“Well,” admitted the Bobbsey lad, “they look like ’em.”

“They surely are!” declared Nan.  “Oh, I’m so excited!  Let’s go right in and buy them.  Then we’ll get a hundred dollars!”

She darted away from Bert’s side, and was about to move toward the door of the shop when Billy caught her by the coat sleeve.

“Wait a minute, Nan,” he said.

“What for?” she asked.

“Until Bert and I talk this over,” went on Billy, who, though he was not much older than Nan, seemed to be, perhaps because he had lived in a large city all his life.  “You don’t want to rush in and buy those dishes so quick.”

“Why not?” demanded Nan.  “If I don’t get ’em somebody else may, and you know Miss Pompret offered a reward of a hundred dollars.  These are the two pieces missing from her set.  Her set is ‘broken’ as she calls it, if she doesn’t have this sugar bowl and pitcher.”

“Yes, I remember your telling me about Miss Pompret’s reward,” said Billy.  “But you’d better go a bit slow.”

“Maybe somebody else’ll buy ’em!” exclaimed Nan.