"If we let you out will you let us off our promise not to tell about you
and the pipes? We won't tell till you've gone back to school."
He wouldn't for a long time, but at last he had to.
"I shan't ever come to your beastly house again," he bellowed through
the keyhole, "so I don't mind."
"Turn off the gas-burners then," said Oswald, ever thoughtful, though he
was still in ignorance of the beautiful truth.
Then Noel sang out over the stairs, "Light up!" and Jane went round with
a taper, and when the landing gas was lighted Noel turned the knob of
the bath-room, and Archibald exited in his Indian red and yellow
dressing-gown that he thought so much of. Of course we expected his face
to be red with rage, or white with passion, or purple with mixed
emotions, but you cannot think what our feelings were--indeed, we hardly
knew what they were ourselves--when we saw that he was not red or white
or purple, but _black_. He looked like an uneven sort of bluish nigger.
His face and hands were all black and blue in streaks, and so were the
bits of his feet that showed between his Indian dressing-gown and his
Turkish slippers.
[Illustration: "WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG!" JANE
ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY.]
The word "Krikey" fell from more than one lip.
"What are you staring at?" he asked.
We did not answer even then, though I think it was less from
keep-your-wordishness than amazement. But Jane did.
"Nyang, Nyang!" she uttered tauntingly. "You thought it was soap I was
giving you, and all the time it was Maple's dark bright navy-blue
indelible dye--won't wash out." She flashed a looking-glass in his face,
and he looked and saw the depth of his dark bright navy-blueness.
Now, you may think that we shouted with laughing to see him done brown
and dyed blue like this, but we did not. There was a spellbound silence.
Oswald, I know, felt a quite uncomfortable feeling inside him.
When Archibald had had one good look at himself he did not want any
more. He ran to his room and bolted himself in.
"_He_ won't go to no parties," said Jane, and she flounced downstairs.
We never knew how much Noel had told her. He is very young, and not so
strong as we are, and we thought it better not to ask.
Oswald and Dicky and H.O.--particularly H.O.--told each other it served
him right, but after a bit Dora asked Noel if he would mind her trying
to get some of it off our unloved cousin, and he said "No."
[Illustration: WHEN FATHER CAME HOME THERE WAS AN AWFUL ROW.]
But nothing would get it off him; and when Father came home there was an
awful row. And he said we had disgraced ourselves and forgotten the
duties of hospitality. We got it pretty straight, I can tell you. And we
bore it all. I do not say we were martyrs to the honour of our house and
to our plighted word, but I do say that we got it very straight indeed,
and we did not tell the provocativeness we had had from our guest that
drove the poet Noel to this wild and desperate revenge.
But some one told, and I have always thought it was Jane, and that is
why we did not ask too many questions about what Noel had told her,
because late that night Father came and said he now understood that we
had meant to do right, except perhaps the one who cut the pipe with a
chisel, and that must have been more silliness than naughtiness; and
perhaps the being dyed blue served our cousin rather right. And he gave
Archibald a few remarks in private, and when the dye began to come
off--it was not a fast dye, though it said so on the paper it was
wrapped in--Archibald, now a light streaky blue, really did seem to be
making an effort to be something like decent. And when, now merely a
pale grey, he had returned to school, he sent us a letter. It said:--
"_My dear Cousins_,--
"_I think that I was beastlier than I meant to
be, but I am not accustomed to young kids. And I
think uncle was right, and the way you stand up
for the honour of our house is not all nonsense,
like I said it was. If we ever meet in the future
life I hope you will not keep a down on me about
things. I don't think you can expect me to say
more. From your affectionate cousin,_
"_Archibald Bastable._"
So I suppose rays of remorse penetrated that cold heart, and now perhaps
he will be a reformed Bastable. I am sure I hope so, but I believe it is
difficult, if not impossible, for a leopard to change his skin.
Still, I remember how indelibly black he looked when he came out of the
fatal bath-room; and it nearly all wore off. And perhaps spots on the
honourable inside parts of your soul come off with time. I hope so. The
dye never came off the inside of the bath though. I think that was what
annoyed our good great-uncle the most.
_OVER THE WATER TO CHINA_
OSWALD is a very modest boy, I believe, but even he would not deny that
he has an active brain. The author has heard both his Father and
Albert's uncle say so. And the most far-reaching ideas often come to him
quite naturally--just as silly notions that aren't any good might come
to you. And he had an idea which he meant to hold a council; about with
his brothers and sisters; but just as he was going to unroll his idea to
them our Father occurred suddenly in our midst and said a strange cousin
was coming, and he came, and he was strange indeed! And when Fate had
woven the threads of his dark destiny and he had been dyed a dark bright
navy-blue, and had gone from our midst, Oswald went back to the idea
that he had not forgotten. The words "tenacious of purpose" mean
sticking to things, and these words always make me think of the
character of the young hero of these pages. At least I suppose his
brothers Dicky and Noel and H.O. are heroes too, in a way, but somehow
the author of these lines knows more about Oswald's inside realness
than he does about the others. But I am getting too deep for words.
So Oswald went into the common-room. Every one was busy. Noel and H.O.
were playing Halma. Dora was covering boxes with silver paper to put
sweets in for a school treat, and Dicky was making a cardboard model of
a new screw he has invented for ocean steamers. But Oswald did not mind
interrupting, because Dora ought not to work too hard, and Halma always
ends in a row, and I would rather not say what I think of Dicky's screw.
So Oswald said--
"I want a council. Where's Alice?"
Every one said they didn't know, and they made haste to say that we
couldn't have a council without her. But Oswald's determined nature made
him tell H.O. to chuck that rotten game and go and look for her. H.O. is
our youngest brother, and it is right that he should remember this and
do as he was told. But he happened to be winning the beastly Halma game,
and Oswald saw that there was going to be trouble--"big trouble," as Mr.
Kipling says. And he was just bracing his young nerves for the conflict
with H.O., because he was not going to stand any nonsense from his young
brother about his not fetching Alice when he was jolly well told to,
when the missing maiden bounced into the room bearing upon her brow the
marks of ravaging agitatedness.
"Have any of you seen Pincher?" she cried, in haste.