Paddington At Large

Copyright

First published in Great Britain

by William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd. in 1962

This edition first published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 1998 This edition published in 2018

HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

Visit our HarperCollins Children’s Books website at: www.harpercollinschildrensbooks.co.uk

Text copyright © Michael Bond 1962

Illustrations copyright © Peggy Fortnum

and William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd. 1962

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work.

Cover illustration adapted and coloured by Mark Burgess from the original by Peggy Fortnum

Source ISBN: 9780006753636

EPub Edition © JANUARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007461486

Version: 2018-05-23

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

1. Paddington Breaks the Peace

2. Mr Gruber’s Outing

3. Goings on at Number Thirty-Two

4. Paddington Hits the Jackpot

5. A Sticky Time

6. Trouble in the Bargain Basement

7. Paddington and the Christmas Pantomime

About the Author

Other books by Michael Bond

About the Publisher

Chapter One PADDINGTON BREAKS THE PEACE

“I know I keep on saying it,” exclaimed Mrs Brown, as she placed an extremely large vegetable marrow on the kitchen scales, “but I’m sure Paddington must have been born with green paws. Have you seen this one? He’s beaten his best by over half a pound.”

“Hmm,” said Mrs Bird. “Well, I’ll grant you one thing, green paws are better than idle ones and at least gardening keeps him busy. We haven’t had an upset for weeks now.”

The Browns’ housekeeper hastily touched wood as her eyes followed the progress of a small brown figure clad in a shapeless hat and an equally disreputable-looking duffle coat as it made its way down the garden path before disappearing into a potting shed behind the raspberry canes.

Mrs Bird was never very happy about any of Paddington’s activities which took him out of her sight for too long a time, and Paddington’s interest in gardening had lasted much too long for her peace of mind.

All the same, even Mrs Bird had to admit that for some time past things had been remarkably peaceful at number thirty-two Windsor Gardens.

It had all started when Paddington arrived home from the market one day carrying a giant packet of assorted seeds which he’d bought for the bargain price of five pence. At the time it had seemed such good value for money that Mr Brown had been only too pleased to let him have a corner of the garden, and for several evenings afterwards Paddington had been kept very busy counting the seeds, making sure none of them were stuck to his paws as he sorted them into separate piles in order of size before he planted them.

Only Mrs Bird had been full of forebodings. “Woe betide the man in the shop if they don’t all come up,” she remarked when she noticed the seed packet had been marked down from fifteen pence. “I can see there’ll be some nasty scenes.”

But despite Mrs Bird’s misgivings, within a week or two the first of the seeds began to sprout and in no time at all ‘Paddington’s Patch’ was such a blaze of colour it soon put the rest of the garden to shame.

From that moment on Paddington spent most of his spare time out of doors, and when he began supplying the household with vegetables as well as flowers everyone had to agree with Mrs Brown that he must have been born with green paws.

“I must say the garden is a picture at the moment,” she continued, as she turned to help Mrs Bird with the washing-up. “Even Mr Curry called out this morning and said how nice it looks.”

“If I know Mr Curry,” said Mrs Bird darkly, “he was probably after something. He doesn’t say things like that without a very good reason.”

“Perhaps he wants some cheap vegetables,” said Mrs Brown. “You know how mean he is.”

“He’ll be lucky with that bear,” replied Mrs Bird. “And quite right too, seeing the state his own garden’s in. It’s a disgrace.”

Mr Curry’s lawn was very overgrown with weeds and Mrs Bird held strong views about the way the seeds blew over the fence whenever there was a strong wind.

“Funnily enough,” said Mrs Brown, “I think he was just getting his lawnmower out when he spoke to me. Perhaps he’s going to make a start.”

“Not before time,” snorted Mrs Bird. “And I shall believe it when I see it. He’s much more likely to give the job to some poor bob-a-job-week scout than do it himself.”

Mrs Bird gave the washing-up several nasty jabs with her mop, but if she had been able to see Mr Curry as she spoke she would probably have snorted even louder, for at that moment the Browns’ neighbour was peering over the fence at Paddington with a very cunning expression on his face.

Unaware of the danger he was in, Paddington was sitting on a patch of ground behind the raspberry canes busy with his accounts. Mrs Bird paid him strict market rates for all his vegetables and although she kept a careful note of all his sales Paddington wasn’t the sort of bear to take chances and he liked to make doubly sure by keeping his own record. He had just finished entering the words ‘MARROWS – VERRY LARGE – ONE’ in his notebook when Mr Curry’s voice shattered the morning air.

“Bear!” he roared. “What are you doing, bear? Resting on your laurels?”

Paddington jumped up in alarm at the sound of Mr Curry’s voice. “Oh no, Mr Curry,” he exclaimed, when he had recovered from the shock. “I was only sitting on my begonias.”

Mr Curry looked at him suspiciously but Paddington returned his gaze very earnestly.

The cunning expression returned to Mr Curry’s face as he looked round Paddington’s garden. “I’m glad to see you’re all up to date, bear,” he said. “I was wondering if you would like to earn yourself five pence if you’ve a few moments to spare.”

“Er … yes, please, Mr Curry,” said Paddington doubtfully. From past experience he felt sure that any job for which Mr Curry was willing to pay five pence would take far longer than a few minutes, but he was much too polite to say so.

“Are you any good at climbing trees?” asked Mr Curry.

“Oh yes,” said Paddington importantly. “Bears are good at climbing things.”

“That’s good,” said Mr Curry, waving a hand in the direction of a large tree near his house. “In that case perhaps you’d like to pick a few apples for me.”

“Thank you very much, Mr Curry,” said Paddington, looking most surprised at the thought of being paid five pence just for picking a few apples.

“Oh, and while you’re up there,” said Mr Curry casually, “there’s a dangerous branch that needs cutting down. I’m afraid I have to go out but it’s very kind of you to offer, bear. Very kind indeed.”

Before Paddington had time to open his mouth Mr Curry produced a saw and a length of rope from behind his back and pointed to the branch in question.

“Now don’t forget,” he said, as he handed the bits and pieces over the fence, “you tie one end of this rope to the branch, then you loop the other end over the top of the tree and tie it back down to something heavy on the ground. That’s most important, otherwise the branch might fall down too quickly and cause a nasty accident. I don’t want to come back and find any broken windows.

“And if you finish before I get back,” continued Mr Curry, “perhaps you’d like to cut my grass. I’ve put the mower all ready and if you make a good job of it there might even be another five pence.”

With that Mr Curry turned on his heels and disappeared in the direction of the house leaving Paddington anxiously holding the rope between his paws. He felt sure he hadn’t said anything to Mr Curry about cutting down his branches, let alone uttered a word about mowing the grass. But the Browns’ neighbour had a way of twisting things so that other people were never quite sure what they had said.

If it had simply been a matter of cutting the grass Paddington might have pretended that he’d got something stuck in his ear by mistake and hadn’t heard properly, but as he studied Mr Curry’s tree he began to look more and more thoughtful.

A few moments later he jumped up and began hurrying around as he made his preparations. Paddington like climbing trees and he was also very keen on sawing. To be able to do both at the same time seemed a very good idea indeed, especially when it was in someone else’s garden.

All the same, as he looked around for something heavy to tie the rope to he soon decided that it was easier said than done. The nearest object was Mr Curry’s fence and that was so rickety a piece of it came away in his paw when he tested it with one of his special knots.

In the end Paddington settled on Mr Curry’s lawnmower, which looked much more solid, and after making a double knot round the handle to be on the safe side he began to climb the apple tree armed with the saw and a jar of his favourite marmalade.

Mr Curry’s tree was rather old and Paddington didn’t like the way it creaked, but at long last he settled himself near the branch that had to be cut down and after making sure the other end of the rope was properly tied he dipped his paw in the marmalade jar and got ready for the big moment.