Читать онлайн «Paddington Marches On»

Автор Bond Michael

First published in Great Britain

by William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd. in 1964

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

and William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd. 1964

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

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Source ISBN: 9780006753629

eBook Edition © JANURARY 2012 ISBN: 9780007402588

Version: 2018-05-23

Contents

Paddington stood on the front doorstep of number thirty-two Windsor Gardens and sniffed the morning air.

He peered out through the gap between his duffle coat hood and a brightly coloured scarf which was wound tightly about his neck.

On the little that could be seen of his face behind some unusually white-looking whiskers there was a mixture of surprise and excitement as he took in the sight which met his eyes.

Overnight a great change had come over the weather. Whereas the day before had been mild, almost spring-like for early January, now everything was covered by a thick white blanket of snow which reached almost to the top of his Wellington boots.

Not a sound disturbed the morning air. Apart from the clatter of breakfast things in the kitchen, where Mrs Brown and Mrs Bird were busy washing up, the only sign that he wasn’t alone in the world came from a row of milk bottle tops poking through the snow on the step and a long trail of footprints where the postman had been earlier that day.

Paddington liked snow, but as he gazed at the view in the street outside he almost agreed with Mrs Bird, the Browns’ housekeeper, that it was possible to have too much of a good thing. Since he’d been living with the Brown family there had been several of Mrs Bird’s ‘cold snaps’, but he couldn’t remember ever seeing one before in which the snow had settled quite so deep and crisp and evenly.