Then he got out of the car and went into the shop--they sold toys there as well as everything else--to buy something himself. He could not find exactly what he wanted--in shops crowded with glittering uselessnesses it is rarely that you can find the particular uselessness on which you have set your heart--but Tommy of the Five Bells had no fault to find with the big, brown-papered parcel which reached him by the next day's afternoon post. He could not imagine any soldiers more perfectly satisfying than these, no bricks more solid and square, no drafts more neatly turned, no dominoes more smoothly finished. To Mr. Basingstoke's old nurse the world seemed to hold nothing fairer than the lace collar and the violet-silk necktie. "Do me for Sundays for years," she said, putting them back in their tissue-paper and turning her attention to the box of sweets and the stockings for the children. The girl who sold Mr. Basingstoke the lace collar sniggered apart with a kindred sniggerer as she sold it to him, and delayed to make out his bill, but the other girl, almost a child, with a black bow tying her hair, sold him the stockings and was sympathetic and helpful. "How many stockings ought a child to have, so as to have plenty?" he asked her, confidentially. At the lace-counter he had made his own choice, in stern silence. "Three pairs," said the girl; "that's one in wear, one in the wash, and one in case of accidents." She glanced through the glass door at the motor, and decided that he could afford it. "But, of course, four would be better." "I should think six would be best," said he, "that's one for each day in the week, and on Saturday they can stay in bed while their mother does the washing." "You don't wash on Saturdays," said the girl, her little, plain face lighting up with a smile. She saw the eye of the shop-walker on her and added, nervously, "Shall we say six, then, sir; and what size? I mean what aged child? About what price?" "Three to eleven," said he. "They're one and eleven-three," said she. "I mean the children, not the stockings--there are five of them--what's five sixes?" "Thirty," the girl told him, with a glance at the shop-walker that was almost defiant in its triumph. "That's it, then," said he, "and sort out the sizes properly, please, will you? Three six, two sevens, ten and eleven. And put in some garters--children's stockings are always coming down, you know--" The girl had not before sold garters to insane but agreeable gentlemen. She hesitated and said in a low voice, "I don't think garters, sir. Suspenders are more worn now--" "Well, suspenders then. The means doesn't matter--it's the keeping up that's the important thing." He laid a five-pound note on the counter, just as the shop-walker came up to her with a slightly insolent, "Serving, Miss Moore?" "Sign, sir," said Miss Moore, defending herself from his displeasure with the bill. "Anything more, sir?"