“Wait a minute,” said Billy.  “These dishes are worth only a dollar, but I have fifteen cents I can lend you, Bert.  That will make a dollar and thirty-four cents.  That’s all we have and if you don’t want to sell the dishes for that, we can go and get ’em somewhere else.”

Nan was about to gasp out:  “Oh!” but a look from Billy stopped her.  She saw what he was trying to do.

“A dollar thirty-four—­that’s all the moneys you got?” asked the old man.

“Every cent we’re going to give!” declared Billy firmly.  “If you’ll sell the play dishes for that all right.  If you won’t—­”

He seemed about to leave.

“Oh, well, what I cares if I die in the poor-house?” asked the old man.  “Here!  Take ’em.  But I am losing money.  Those is valuable dishes.  If I had more I could sell ’em for ten dollars maybe.  But as they is all I got take ’em for a dollar and thirty-four.  You couldn’t make it a dollar thirty-five, could you?”

“No,” said Bert decidedly, “we couldn’t!”

“Oh, dear!” sighed the old man.  “Take ’em, then.”

“They’re awfully dusty,” complained Nell, as she looked at the sugar bowl and pitcher.

“That’s ’cause they’re so old and valuable, my dear,” snarled the old man.  “But my wife she dust them off for you, and I wrap them up, though I ought to charge you a penny for a sheet of paper.  But what I care if I dies in the poorhouse.”

“Are you goin’ there soon?” asked Flossie.  “We’ve got a poorhouse at Lakeport, and it’s awful nice.”

“Oh, well, little one, maybe I don’t go there just yet,” said the man who spoke wrong words sometimes.  “Here, Mina!” he called, and a woman, almost as old as he, came from the back room.  “Wipe off the dust.  I have sold the old dishes—­the valuable old dishes.”

“Ah, such a bargain as they got!” murmured the old woman.  “Them is valuable china.  Such a bargains!”

“Where did you get them?” asked Nan, as the dishes were being wrapped and the old man was counting over the nickels, dimes and pennies of the children’s money.

“Where I get them?  Of how should I know?  Maybe they come in by somebody what sell them for money.  Maybe we buy them in some old house like Washington’s.  It is long ago.  We have had them in the shop a long time, but the older they are the better they get.  They is all the better for being old—­a better bargain, my dear!” and the old woman smiled, showing a mouth from which many teeth were missing.

“Well, come on,” said Billy, when the dishes had been wrapped and given to Bert, who carried them carefully.  “But I wish you had some sailboats,” he said to the old man, as if that was all they had come in to buy.

“I have some next week,” answered the old man.  “Comes around then and have a big bargains in a sailsboats.”

“Maybe I will,” agreed Billy.

Out of the shop walked the Bobbsey twins and their chums, the Martin children of Washington.  And the hearts of Bert and Nan, at least, were beating quickly with excitement and hope.  As for Flossie, she was holding her doll, and Freddie was blowing his whistle.