Free Brother Dusty-Feet by Rosemary Sutcliff Page B

about his wonderful Elixir.
    ‘Course not,’ said Nicky, scornfully. ‘It’s just powdered chalk.’
    That seemed to Hugh very dishonest, and he said in a disappointed voice, ‘But he looked so
nice
.’
    ‘He is,’ said Jonathan, looking down at him with his queer faun’s smile. ‘Zackary’s the staunchest friend a man could have. He’s a thorough rogue, but
that
is quite a different matter.’
    Hugh was still thinking this over, when therebegan to be a great falling back and commotion among the people all round him, and peering between the performing pony’s master and an apple-stall, he caught a glimpse of two or three stately gentlemen carrying rods of office and attended by several men who looked like the Watch, coming towards them down the crowded alley.
    ‘Steward’s officers, by cock and pie!’ exclaimed Nicky, and in the same instant Jonathan’s hand came down on Hugh’s shoulder, swinging him round to face the way he had come.
    ‘Nip back to Master Hawkins,’ said Jonathan’s voice in his ear. ‘You’ll get through this crowd quicker than we could, and there’s no time to spare. Tell him the Steward’s officers are coming. Leave Argos with me.’
    So Hugh gave Argos’s leash to Jonathan, and plunged away into the crowd. It was only a hundred yards at most, and all the way he could see a red pennant fluttering from the roof of a booth which he remembered had been close to the Quack Doctor’s stand, and quite a lot of the way he could see the top of the Quack Doctor’s tall hat. So he could not get lost. But the crowd seemed thicker than ever, and every moment he expected to be overtaken by the Steward’s officers, and it seemed a very long time before he arrived. But he did arrive at last, breathless and buffeted, in the clearing where Zackary Hawkins was still talking at the top of his voice and handing out boxes of his Elixir from one of two large sacks beside him, and taking in the pence as fast as he could.
    Diving and butting and sidling, and not stopping to apologize to people whose feet he trod on, Hughreached the Quack Doctor, and gasped, ‘The Steward’s officers are coming. Jonathan sent me.’
    Zackary Hawkins squinted down at him quite calmly, and broke off his trumpeting for one instant to say. ‘Ha! Hum! Thanks, brother.’ Then he began again, beaming at the crowd. ‘My friends, you have had the last box! The very last box of my wonderful Elixir. But stay. I have here, for the ladies among you’ – he plunged a hand into the other sack and brought out triumphantly a box that looked very like the ones he had been selling all along – ‘a little of the identical facepowder used by Helen of Troy to give lustre to her beauty when entertaining Julius Cæsar to dinner. Now, by a strange coincidence, this powder is almost exactly the same in appearance as my wonderful Elixir, so it is necessary to keep them carefully apart, since my Elixir applied outwardly, and this exquisite powder applied inwardly, would be useless; nay, worse than useless! Ladies, this is the identical face-powder used by Helen of Troy, I do assure you! A friend of mind found it in the ruins of that city.’
    Meanwhile, as soon as Hugh had disappeared in the crowd, Jonathan thoughtfully leaned against the apple-stall so that it upset, spilling a shower of russet apples all across the path of the Steward’s officers as they came by. Nicky leapt to the rescue, and fell over the feet of the fattest officer, all but spilling him among the apples, and Jasper Nye, who was a good actor, even though he hadn’t much sense, got in everybody’s way, protesting almost tearfully ‘Clumsy! clumsy! Oh, sirs, I trust you are not hurt.’ While Argos wound his leash round the legs of another officer very cleverly indeed. By that timethe performing pony was getting badly mixed up with the Watch, and the stall-holder was dancing with fury, the crowd were joyfully helping to gather up the fallen apples, and the