"You remember the chapter of 'The Golden Gondola' that I wrote for the
_People's Pageant_ just before I had the honour to lead to the altar,
&c. I mean the one that ends in the subterranean passage, with
Geraldine's hair down, and her last hope gone, and the three villains
stealing upon her with Venetian subtlety in their hearts and Toledo
daggers (specially imported) in their garters? I didn't care much for it
myself, you remember. I think I must have been thinking of other things
when I wrote it. But you, I recollect, consoled me by refusing to regard
it as other than 'ripping.' 'Clinking' was, as I recall it, Oswald's
consolatory epithet. You'll weep with me, I feel confident, when you
hear that my Editor does not share your sentiments. He writes me that it
is not up to my usual form. He fears that the public, &c., and he trusts
that in the next chapter, &c. Let us hope that the public will, in this
matter, take your views, and not his. Oh! for a really discerning
public, just like you--you amiable critics! Albert's new aunt is
leaning over my shoulder. I can't break her of the distracting habit.
How on earth am I ever to write another line? Greetings to all from
"ALBERT'S UNCLE AND AUNT.
"PS.--She insists on having her name put to this, but of course she
didn't write it. I am trying to teach her to spell."
"PSS.--Italian spelling, of course."
"And now," cried Oswald, "I see it all!"
The others didn't. They often don't when Oswald does.
"Why, don't you see!" he patiently explained, for he knows that it is
vain to be angry with people because they are not so clever as--as other
people. "It's the direct aspiration of Fate. He wants it, does he? Well,
he shall have it!"
"What?" said everybody.
"We'll be it."
"_What?_" was the not very polite remark now repeated by all.
"Why, his discerning public."
And still they all remained quite blind to what was so clear to Oswald,
the astute and discernful.
"It will be much more useful than killing dragons," Oswald went on,
"especially as there aren't any; and it will be a really truly wedding
present--just what we were wishing we'd given him."
The five others now fell on Oswald and rolled him under the table and
sat on his head so that he had to speak loudly and plainly.
[Illustration: THE FIVE OTHERS]
"All right! I'll tell you--in words of one syllable if you like. Let go,
I say!" And when he had rolled out with the others and the tablecloth
that caught on H.O.'s boots and the books and Dora's workbox, and the
glass of paint-water that came down with it, he said--
"We will _be_ the public. We will all write to the editor of the
_People's Pageant_ and tell him what we think about the Geraldine
chapter. Do mop up that water, Dora; it's running all under where I'm
sitting."
"Don't you think," said Dora, devoting her handkerchief and Alice's in
the obedient way she does not always use, "that six letters, all signed
'Bastable,' and all coming from the same house, would be
rather--rather----"
"A bit too thick? Yes," said Alice; "but of course we'd have all
different names and addresses."
"We might as well do it thoroughly," said Dicky, "and send three or four
different letters each."
"And have them posted in different parts of London. Right oh!" remarked
Oswald.
"_I_ shall write a piece of poetry for mine," said Noel.
"They ought all to be on different kinds of paper," said Oswald. "Let's
go out and get the paper directly after tea."
We did, but we could only get fifteen different kinds of paper and
envelopes, though we went to every shop in the village.
At the first shop, when we said, "Please we want a penn'orth of paper
and envelopes of each of all the different kinds you keep," the lady of
the shop looked at us thinly over blue-rimmed spectacles and said, "What
for?"