Paddington Complete Novels

The man coughed. “Oh dear,” he said. “How very unfortunate.” He gave Paddington a sickly smile and decided to ignore the whole matter. “And what can we do for you, sir?” he asked, brightly.

Paddington looked round carefully to make sure Mrs Brown was nowhere in sight. “I want a clothes-line,” he announced.

“A what?” exclaimed the assistant.

Paddington hurriedly moved the bullseye to the other side of his mouth. “A clothes-line,” he repeated, in a muffled voice. “It’s for Mrs Bird. Her old one broke the other day.”

The assistant swallowed hard. He found it impossible to understand what this extraordinary young bear was saying.

“Perhaps,” he suggested, for a Crumbold & Ferns assistant rarely bent down, “you wouldn’t mind standing on the counter?”

Paddington sighed. It really was most difficult trying to explain things sometimes. Climbing up on to the counter he unlocked his suitcase and withdrew an advertisement which he’d cut from Mr Brown’s newspaper several days before.

“Ah!” The assistant’s face cleared. “You mean one of our special expanding clothes-lines, sir.” He reached up to a shelf and picked out a small green box. “A very suitable choice, if I may say so, sir. As befits a young bear of taste. I can thoroughly recommend it.”

The man pulled a piece of rope through a hole in the side of the box and handed it to Paddington. “This type of expanding clothes-line is used by some of the best families in the country.”

Paddington looked suitably impressed as he climbed down, holding on to the rope with his paw.

“You see,” continued the man, bending over the counter, “it is all quite simple. The clothes-line is all contained inside this box. As you walk away with the rope, it unwinds itself. Then, when you have finished with it, you simply turn this handle…” A puzzled note came into his voice.

“You simply turn this handle,” he repeated, trying again. Really, it was all most annoying. Instead of the clothes-line going back into the box as it was supposed to, more was actually coming out.

“I’m extremely sorry, sir,” he began, looking up from the counter. “Something seems to have jammed…” His voice trailed away and a worried look come into his eyes, for Paddington was nowhere in sight.

“I say,” he called, to another assistant farther along the counter. “Have you seen a young bear gentleman go past – pulling on a clothes-line?”

“He went that way,” replied the other man, briefly. He pointed towards the china department. “I think he got caught in the crowd.”

“Oh dear,” said Paddington’s assistant, as he picked up the green box and began pushing his way through the crowd of shoppers, following the trail of the clothes-line. “Oh dear! Oh dear!”

As it happened, the assistant wasn’t the only one to feel worried. At the other end of the clothes-line Paddington was already in trouble. Crumbold & Ferns was filled with people doing their Christmas shopping, and none of them seemed to have time for a small bear. Several times he’d had to crawl under a table in order to avoid being trodden on.

It was a very good clothes-line, and Paddington felt sure Mrs Bird would like it. But he couldn’t help wishing he’d chosen something else. There seemed to be no end to it, and he kept getting it tangled round people’s legs.

He went on and on, round a table laden with cups and saucers, past a pillar, underneath another table, and still the clothes-line trailed after him. All the time the crowd was getting thicker and thicker and Paddington had to push hard to make any headway at all. Once or twice he nearly lost his hat.

Just as he had almost given up hope of ever finding his way back to the Household Department again, he caught sight of the assistant. To Paddington’s surprise, the man was sitting on the floor, looking very red in the face. His hair was all ruffled and he appeared to be struggling with a table leg.

“Ah, there you are!” he gasped, when he caught sight of Paddington. “I suppose you realise, young bear, I’ve been following you all round the China Department. Now you’ve tied everything up in knots.”

“Oh dear,” said Paddington, looking at the rope. “Did I do that? I’m afraid I got lost. Bears aren’t very good in crowds, you know. I must have gone under the same table twice.”

“What have you done with the other end?” shouted the assistant.

He wasn’t in the best of tempers. It was hot and noisy under the table and people kept kicking him. Apart from that, it was most undignified.

“It’s here,” said Paddington, trying to find his end of the rope. “At least – it was a moment ago.”

“Where?” shouted the assistant. He didn’t know whether it was simply the noise of the crowd, but he still couldn’t understand a word this young bear uttered. Whenever he did say anything it seemed to be accompanied by a strong crunching noise and a strong smell of peppermint.

“Speak up,” he shouted, cupping a hand to his ear. “I can’t hear a word you say.”

Paddington looked at the man uneasily. He looked rather cross and he was beginning to wish he had left his bullseye on the pavement outside. It was a very nice bullseye but it made talking most difficult.

It was as he felt in his duffle coat pocket for a handkerchief that it happened.

The assistant jumped slightly and the expression on his face froze and then gradually changed to one of disbelief.

“Excuse me,” said Paddington, tapping him on the shoulder, “but I think my bullseye has fallen in your ear!”

“Your bullseye?” exclaimed the man, in a horrified tone of voice. “Fallen in my ear?”

“Yes,” said Paddington. “It was given to me by a bus conductor and I’m afraid it’s got a bit slippery where I’ve been sucking it.”

The assistant crawled out from under the table and drew himself up to his full height. With a look of great distaste, he withdrew the remains of Paddington’s bullseye from his ear. He held it for a moment between thumb and forefinger and then hurriedly placed it on a nearby counter. It was bad enough having to crawl around the floor untangling a clothes-line – but to have a bullseye in his ear – such a thing had never been known before in Crumbold & Ferns.

He took a deep breath and pointed a trembling finger in Paddington’s direction. But as he opened his mouth to speak he noticed that Paddington was no longer there. Neither, for that matter, was the clothes-line. He was only just in time to grab the table as it rocked on its legs. As it was, several plates and a cup and saucer fell to the floor.

The assistant raised his eyes to the ceiling and made a mental note to avoid any young bears who came into the shop in future.

There seemed to be a commotion going on in the direction of the entrance hall. He had his own ideas on the possible cause of it, but wisely he decided to keep his thoughts to himself. He had had quite enough to do with bear customers for one day.

Mrs Brown pushed her way through the crowd which had formed on the pavement outside Crumbold & Ferns.

“Excuse me,” she said, pulling on the doorkeeper’s sleeve. “Excuse me. You haven’t seen a young bear in a blue duffle coat, have you? We arranged to meet here and there are so many people about I’m really rather worried.”

The doorkeeper touched his cap. “That wouldn’t be the young gentleman in question, ma’am?” he asked, pointing through a gap in the crowd to where another man in uniform was struggling with the revolving door. “If it is – he’s stuck. Good and proper. Can’t get in and can’t get out. Right in the middle he is, so to speak.”

“Oh dear,” said Mrs Brown. “That certainly sounds as if it might be Paddington.”

Standing on tip-toe, she peered over the shoulder of a bearded gentleman in front of her. The man was shouting words of encouragement as he tapped on the glass and she just caught a glimpse of a familiar paw as it waved back in acknowledgement.

“It is Paddington,” she exclaimed. “Now how on earth did he get in there?”

“Ah,” said the doorkeeper. “That’s just what we’re trying to find out. Something to do with ’is getting a clothes-line wrapped round the ’inges, so they say.”

There was a ripple of excitement from the crowd as the door started to revolve once more.

Everyone made a rush for Paddington, but the distinguished man with the beard reached him first. To everyone’s surprise, he took hold of his paw and began pumping it up and down.

“Thank you, bear,” he kept saying. “Glad to know you, bear!”

“Glad to know you,” repeated Paddington, looking as surprised as anyone.

“I say,” exclaimed the doorkeeper respectfully, as he turned to Mrs Brown. “I didn’t know he was a friend of Sir Gresholm Gibbs.”

“Neither did I,” said Mrs Brown. “And who might Sir Gresholm Gibbs be?”