since I was at the Zoo. I might make my jacket do; it's my hat I'm
thinking about."

Mr. Chase, meeting Mr. Teak's eye, winked an obvious suggestion.

"So, thanking you all the same," continued Mrs. Teak, with amiable
cheerfulness, "I'll stay at 'ome."

"'Ow-'ow much are they?" growled her husband, scowling at Mr. Chase.

"All prices," replied his wife.

"Yes, I know," said Mr. Teak, in a grating voice. "You go in to buy a
hat at one and eleven-pence; you get talked over and flattered by a man
like a barber's block, and you come out with a four-and-six penny one.
The only real difference in hats is the price, but women can never see
it."

Mrs. Teak smiled faintly, and again expressed her willingness to stay at
home. They could spend the afternoon working in the garden, she said.
Her husband, with another indignant glance at the right eye of Mr. Chase,
which was still enacting the part of a camera-shutter, said that she
could have a hat, but asked her to remember when buying it that nothing
suited her so well as a plain one.

The remainder of the week passed away slowly; and Mr. Teak, despite his
utmost efforts, was unable to glean any information from Mr. Chase as to
that gentleman's ideas concerning the hiding-place. At every suggestion
Mr. Chase's smile only got broader and more indulgent.