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I’ve got my return oyster left over and I don’t suppose anyone will ever want to eat it.”
    Mr Gruber stirred his cocoa thoughtfully. “All is not lost, Mr Brown,” he said. “I have a suggestion to make…”
    “I think,” said Mrs Bird, a few days later, “before you are very much older, Paddington, you had better bring whatever you have made downstairs to show the rest of us.”
    It being the weekend, all the family were present and at her suggestion they gathered together on the lawn.
    “Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr Brown, as Paddington held up his handiwork. Don’t tell me you made that all by yourself. Er…what is it?”
    “Whatever it is, it’s better out than in if you ask me,” said Mrs Brown.
    “It’s what’s known as a collage ,” said Paddington, knowledgeably. “A collage with an overlay of some eggs and graphite tempera. ”
    “Good gracious,” said Mrs Bird. “Whatever next? As for using eggs… I thought I was running low.”

    “No wonder you wanted to borrow my bicycle puncture outfit,” Jonathan chimed in. “There I was, thinking your hot-water bottle must have sprung a leak.”
    “It looks wonderful,” said Judy loyally. “Whatever gave you the idea?”
    “It’s a long story,” said Paddington vaguely. “It’s to do with not going anywhere on a bus.”
    “But what is it meant to be?” persisted Mr Brown.
    “Mr Curry on a bad day?” suggested Jonathan.
    “The oyster in the middle looks so real,” said Mrs Brown. “And the inside of the shell is so shiny it looks good enough to eat.”
    “I wouldn’t if I were you, Mrs Brown,” said Paddington.
    Mrs Bird sniffed the air. “If I might make a suggestion,” she said. “It’s like a lot of modern paintings. They are at their best if you stand well away from them. Why don’t we hang it down the end of the garden for the time being?”
    But it was Mr Gruber who paid Paddington the best compliment of all. He stood it on the table in his shop alongside the picture that had started it all.
    “It bears out what I have always said about there being no such word as can’t ,” he said. “I doubt if Picasso at his peak could have produced anything better.”
    “So it could be worth a lot of money,” said Paddington excitedly.
    “Not just yet, I’m afraid,” said Mr Gruber. “Very often it’s a matter of waiting until the creator is no longer with us.”
    “I could do the rest of my shopping, if you like?” said Paddington.
    “I think it might take even longer than that, Mr Brown,” said his friend tactfully.
    For a while lots of passers-by dropped in to admire Paddington’s handiwork, but as the weather grew warmer it was noticeable that fewer and fewer actually entered the shop and if they did, they didn’t linger.
    There came a time when even Mr Gruber began to have second thoughts.
    “If you have no objection, Mr Brown,” he said. “I may find another home for your masterpiece.” And he hung Paddington’s work on a tree in the tiny patio behind his shop.
    First of all he made a photocopy of it for his shop window, and alongside it was a notice saying: VIEWING BY APPOINTMENT ONLY.
    Acting on Mr Gruber’s advice, Paddington added his special paw print in the bottom right hand corner, just to show it was a genuine original.

Chapter Three
    S PRING-CLEANING
    A LTHOUGH M RS B IRD ran what Mr Brown often called ‘a tight ship’ (usually brought on by her sighs when he came in from the garden and deposited mud all over her newly polished kitchen floor), it would have been nearer the truth to say that she did her best to keep everything shipshape and tidy at number thirty-two Windsor Gardens, which wasn’t always easy.
    Not that she was in the habit of laying down the law on such matters. In her view a happy household was one where everyone felt free to do as they wished; within reason of course. Also, it was a matter of territories.
    That said, very little untoward escaped her eagle eye and she was a