Page:The boy travellers in the Far East.djvu/22

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20
THE BOY TRAVELLERS.

then I'll write out a list. I want something of everything, you understand."

"If that's the case," Frank retorted, "you'd better wrap your list around a bushel of money. It'll take a good deal to buy the whole of those two countries."

Mary said she would be satisfied with a shawl and a fan and anything else that was pretty. The countries might stay where they were, and there were doubtless a good many things in them that nobody would want anyway. All she wished was to have anything that was nice and pretty.

For the next few days the proposed journey was the theme of conversation in the Bassett family. Mary examined all the books she could find about the countries her brother expected to visit; then she made a list of the things she desired, and the day before his departure she gave him a sealed envelope containing the paper. She explained that he was not to open it until he reached Japan, and that he would find two lists of what she wanted.

"The things marked 'number one' you must get anyway," she said, "and those marked 'number two' you must get if you can."

Frank thought she had shown great self-denial in making two lists

OVERLAND BY STAGE IN THE OLDEN TIME.