"I'm going to take it out of that porter. You leave me alone. I shall
think of something presently."
"Revenge is very wrong," said Dora; but even Alice asked her kindly to
dry up. We all felt that it was simply piffle to talk copy-book to one
so disappointed as our unfortunate brother.
"It _is_ wrong, though," said Dora.
"Wrong be blowed!" said Dicky, snorting; "who began it I should like to
know! The station's a beastly awkward place to take it out of any one
in. I wish I knew where he lived."
"_I_ know _that_," said Noel. "I've known it a long time--before
Christmas, when we were going to the Moat House."
"Well, what is it, then?" asked Dicky savagely.
"Don't bite his head off," remarked Alice. "Tell us about it, Noel. How
do you know?"
"It was when you were weighing yourselves on the weighing machine. I
didn't because my weight isn't worth being weighed for. And there was a
heap of hampers and turkeys and hares and things, and there was a label
on a turkey and brown-paper parcel; and that porter that you hate so
said to the other porter----"
"Oh, hurry up, do!" said Dicky.
"I won't tell you at all if you bully me," said Noel, and Alice had to
coax him before he would go on.
"Well, he looked at the label and said, 'Little mistake here,
Bill--wrong address; ought to be 3, Abel Place, eh?'
"And the other one looked, and he said, 'Yes; it's got your name right
enough. Fine turkey, too, and his chains in the parcel. Pity they ain't
more careful about addressing things, eh?' So when they had done
laughing about it I looked at the label and it said, 'James Johnson, 8,
Granville Park.' So I knew it was 3, Abel Place, he lived at, and his
name was James Johnson."
"Good old Sherlock Holmes!" said Oswald.
"You won't really _hurt_ him," said Noel, "will you? Not Corsican
revenge with knives, or poisoned bowls? I wouldn't do more than a good
booby-trap, if I was you."
When Noel said the word "booby-trap," we all saw a strange, happy look
come over Dicky's face. It is called a far-away look, I believe, and you
can see it in the picture of a woman cuddling a photograph-album with
her hair down, that is in all the shops, and they call it "The Soul's
Awakening."
Directly Dicky's soul had finished waking up he shut his teeth together
with a click. Then he said, "I've got it."
Of course we all knew that.
"Any one who thinks revenge is wrong is asked to leave _now_."
Dora said he was very unkind, and did he really want to turn her out?
"There's a jolly good fire in Father's study," he said. "No, I'm not
waxy with you, but I'm going to have my revenge, and I don't want you to
do anything you thought wrong. You'd only make no end of a fuss
afterwards."
"Well, it _is_ wrong, so I'll go," said Dora. "Don't say I didn't warn
you, that's all!"
And she went.