And when no one replied he went on: "It was you saying 'Booby-trap' gave
me the idea. His name's James Johnson, is it? And he said the things
were addressed wrong, did he? Well, _I'll_ send him a Turkey-and-chains."
"A Turk in chains," said Noel, growing owley-eyed at the thought--"a
_live_ Turk--or--no, not a dead one, Dicky?"
"The Turk I'm going to send won't be a live one nor yet a dead one."
"How horrible! _Half_ dead. That's worse than anything," and Noel became
so green in the face that Alice told Dicky to stop playing the goat, and
tell us what his idea really was.
"Don't you see _yet_?" he cried; "_I_ saw it directly."
"I daresay," said Oswald; "it's easy to see your own idea. Drive ahead."
"Well, I'm going to get a hamper and pack it full of parcels and put a
list of them on the top--beginning Turk-and-chains, and send it to
Mister James Johnson, and when he opens the parcels there'll be nothing
inside."
"There must be something, you know," said H.O., "or the parcels won't be
any shape except flatness."
"Oh, there'll be _something_ right enough," was the bitter reply of the
one who had not been to the Hippodrome, "but it won't be the sort of
something he'll expect it to be. Let's do it now. I'll get a hamper."
[Illustration: IT WAS RATHER DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING THE SHAPE OF A
TURKEY.]
He got a big one out of the cellar and four empty bottles with their
straw cases. We filled the bottles with black ink and water, and red
ink and water, and soapy water, and water plain. And we put them down on
the list--
1 bottle of port wine.
1 bottle of sherry wine.
1 bottle of sparkling champagne.
1 bottle of rum.