And that was true, at any rate.
Dicky and Oswald lugged the hamper down to the shop that has Carter
Paterson's board outside.
"I vote we don't pay the carriage," said Dicky, but that was perhaps
because he was still so very angry about being pulled off the train.
Oswald had not had it done to him, so he said that we ought to pay the
carriage. And he was jolly glad afterwards that this honourable feeling
had arisen in his young bosom, and that he had jolly well made Dicky let
it rise in his.
We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but Dicky said it was
cheap for a high-class revenge like this, and after all it was his money
the carriage was paid with.
So then we went home and had another go in of grub--because tea had been
rather upset by Dicky's revenge.
The people where we left the hamper told us that it would be delivered
next day. So next morning we gloated over the thought of the sell that
porter was in for, and Dicky was more deeply gloating than any one.
"I expect it's got there by now," he said at dinner-time; "it's a first
class booby-trap; what a sell for him! He'll read the list and then
he'll take out one parcel after another till he comes to the cake. It
_was_ a ripping idea! I'm glad I thought of it!"
"I'm not," said Noel suddenly. "I wish you hadn't--I wish we hadn't. I
know just exactly what he feels like now. He feels as if he'd like to
_kill_ you for it, and I daresay he would if you hadn't been a craven,
white-feathered skulker and not signed your name."
It was a thunderbolt in our midst Noel behaving like this. It made
Oswald feel a sick inside feeling that perhaps Dora had been right. She
sometimes is--and Oswald hates this feeling.
Dicky was so surprised at the unheard-of cheek of his young brother that
for a moment he was speechless, and before he got over his
speechlessness Noel was crying and wouldn't have any more dinner. Alice
spoke in the eloquent language of the human eye and begged Dicky to look
over it this once. And he replied by means of the same useful organ that
he didn't care what a silly kid thought. So no more was said. When Noel
had done crying he began to write a piece of poetry and kept at it all
the afternoon. Oswald only saw just the beginning. It was called
"THE DISAPPOINTED PORTER'S FURY
_Supposed to be by the Porter himself_,"
and it began:--
"When first I opened the hamper fair
And saw the parcel inside there
My heart rejoiced like dry gardens when
It rains--but soon I changed and then
I seized my trusty knife and bowl
Of poison, and said 'Upon the whole
I will have the life of the man
Or woman who thought of this wicked plan
To deceive a trusting porter so.
No noble heart would have thought of it. No.'"
There were pages and pages of it. Of course it was all nonsense--the
poetry, I mean. And yet . . . . . . (I have seen that put in books when
the author does not want to let out all he thought at the time.)