Read Paddington Novels 1-3 for Free Online

thing,” she said.
    The assistant gulped. “Yes, Modom. Certainly, Modom.” He beckoned to Paddington. “Come this way, sir.”
    Paddington followed the assistant, keeping about two feet behind him, and staring very hard. The back of the man’s neck seemed to go a dull red and he fingered his collar nervously. As they passed the hat counter, Albert, who lived in constant fear of his superior, and who had been watching the events with an open mouth, gave Paddington thethumbs-up sign. Paddington waved a paw. He was beginning to enjoy himself.
    He allowed the assistant to help him on with the coat and then stood admiring himself in the mirror. It was the first coat he had ever possessed. In Peru it had been very hot, and though his Aunt Lucy had made him wear a hat to prevent sunstroke, it had always been much too warm for a coat of any sort. He looked at himself in the mirror and was surprised to see not one, but a long line of bears stretching away as far as the eye could see. In fact, everywhere he looked there were bears, and they were all looking extremely smart.
    “Isn’t the hood a trifle large?” asked Mrs Brown, anxiously.
    “Hoods are being worn large this year, Modom,” said the assistant. “It’s the latest fashion.” He was about to add that Paddington seemed to have rather a large head anyway but he changed his mind. Bears were rather unpredictable. You never quite knew what they were thinking and this one in particular seemed to have a mind of his own.
    “Do you like it, Paddington?” asked Mrs Brown.
    Paddington gave up counting bears in the mirror and turned round to look at the back view. “I think it’s the nicest coat I’ve ever seen,” he said, after a moment’s thought. Mrs Brown and the assistant heaved a sigh of relief.
    “Good,” said Mrs Brown. “That’s settled, then. Now there’s just the question of a hat and a plastic macintosh.”
    She walked over to the hat counter, where Albert, who could still hardly take his admiring eyes off Paddington, had arranged a huge pile of hats. There were bowler hats, sun hats, trilby hats, berets, and even a very small top hat. Mrs Brown eyed them doubtfully. “It’s difficult,” she said, looking at Paddington. “It’s largely a question of his ears. They stick out rather.”
    “You could cut some holes for them,” said Albert.
    The assistant froze him with a glance. “Cut a hole in a Barkridge’s hat!” he exclaimed. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
    Paddington turned and stared at him. “I… er…” The assistant’s voice trailed off. “I’ll go and fetchmy scissors,” he said, in a quiet voice.
    “I don’t think that will be necessary at all,” said Mrs Brown, hurriedly. “It’s not as if he had to go to work in the city, so he doesn’t want anything too smart. I think this woollen beret is very nice. The one with the pom-pom on top. The green will go well with his new coat and it’ll stretch so that he can pull it down over his ears when it gets cold.”
    Everyone agreed that Paddington looked very smart, and while Mrs Brown looked for a plastic macintosh, he trotted off to have another look at himself in the mirror. He found the beret was a little difficult to raise as his ears kept the bottom half firmly in place. But by pulling on the pom-pom he could make it stretch quite a long way, which was almost as good. It meant, too, that he could be polite without getting his ears cold.
    The assistant wanted to wrap up the duffel coat for him but after a lot of fuss it was agreed that, even though it was a warm day, he should wear it. Paddington felt very proud of himself and he was anxious to see if other people noticed.
    After shaking hands with Albert, Paddington gave the assistant one more long, hard stare and the unfortunate man collapsed into a chair and began mopping his brow as Mrs Brown led the way out through the door.
    Barkridges was a large shop and it even had its own escalator as well as several