Page:A Child of the Jago - Arthur Morrison.djvu/124

 Now he came to Bishopsgate Street, and here at last he chose the gift. It was at a toy-shop; a fine, flaming toy-shop, with carts, dolls and hoops dangling above, and wooden horses standing below, guarding two baskets by the door. One contained a mixed assortment of tops, whips, boats, and woolly dogs; the other was lavishly filled with shining, round metal boxes nobly decorated with coloured pictures, each box with a little cranked handle. As he looked, a tune, delightfully tinkled on some instrument, was heard from within the shop. Dicky peeped. There was a lady, with a little girl at her side, looking eagerly at just such a shining round box in the saleswoman's hands, and it was from that box, as the saleswoman turned the handle, that the tune came. Dicky was enchanted. This—this was the thing, beyond debate; a pretty little box that would play music whenever you turned a handle. This was a thing worth any fifty