CHAPTER I--by Dora

THE STORY OF THE TREASURE SEEKERS

by E. Nesbit

Being the adventures of the Bastable children in search of a fortune

TO OSWALD BARRON Without whom this book could never have been written

The Treasure Seekers is dedicated in memory of childhoods identical but

for the accidents of time and space

CONTENTS

1. The Council of Ways and Means

2. Digging for Treasure

3. Being Detectives

4. Good Hunting

5. The Poet and the Editor

6. Noel’s Princess

7. Being Bandits

8. Being Editors

9. The G. B.

10. Lord Tottenham

11. Castilian Amoroso

12. The Nobleness of Oswald

13. The Robber and the Burglar

14. The Divining-rod

15. ‘Lo, the Poor Indian!’

16. The End of the Treasure-seeking

CHAPTER 1. THE COUNCIL OF WAYS AND MEANS

This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I

think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the

looking.

There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the

treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how

beastly it is when a story begins, “‘Alas!” said Hildegarde with a deep

sigh, “we must look our last on this ancestral home”’--and then some one

else says something--and you don’t know for pages and pages where the

home is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it. Our ancestral home

is in the Lewisham Road. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not a

large one. We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father. Our

Mother is dead, and if you think we don’t care because I don’t tell you

much about her you only show that you do not understand people at all.

Dora is the eldest. Then Oswald--and then Dicky. Oswald won the Latin

prize at his preparatory school--and Dicky is good at sums. Alice

and Noel are twins: they are ten, and Horace Octavius is my youngest

brother. It is one of us that tells this story--but I shall not tell you

which: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is going

on you may be trying to guess, only I bet you don’t. It was Oswald

who first thought of looking for treasure. Oswald often thinks of very

interesting things. And directly he thought of it he did not keep it

to himself, as some boys would have done, but he told the others, and

said--

‘I’ll tell you what, we must go and seek for treasure: it is always what

you do to restore the fallen fortunes of your House.’

Dora said it was all very well. She often says that. She was trying to

mend a large hole in one of Noel’s stockings. He tore it on a nail when

we were playing shipwrecked mariners on top of the chicken-house the day

H. O. fell off and cut his chin: he has the scar still. Dora is the only

one of us who ever tries to mend anything. Alice tries to make things

sometimes. Once she knitted a red scarf for Noel because his chest

is delicate, but it was much wider at one end than the other, and he

wouldn’t wear it. So we used it as a pennon, and it did very well,

because most of our things are black or grey since Mother died; and

scarlet was a nice change. Father does not like you to ask for new

things. That was one way we had of knowing that the fortunes of the

ancient House of Bastable were really fallen. Another way was that there

was no more pocket-money--except a penny now and then to the little

ones, and people did not come to dinner any more, like they used to,

with pretty dresses, driving up in cabs--and the carpets got holes in

them--and when the legs came off things they were not sent to be mended,

and we gave _up_ having the gardener except for the front garden, and

not that very often. And the silver in the big oak plate-chest that is

lined with green baize all went away to the shop to have the dents

and scratches taken out of it, and it never came back. We think Father

hadn’t enough money to pay the silver man for taking out the dents and

scratches. The new spoons and forks were yellowy-white, and not so heavy

as the old ones, and they never shone after the first day or two.

Father was very ill after Mother died; and while he was ill his

business-partner went to Spain--and there was never much money

afterwards. I don’t know why. Then the servants left and there was only

one, a General. A great deal of your comfort and happiness depends on

having a good General. The last but one was nice: she used to make jolly

good currant puddings for us, and let us have the dish on the floor

and pretend it was a wild boar we were killing with our forks. But the

General we have now nearly always makes sago puddings, and they are

the watery kind, and you cannot pretend anything with them, not even

islands, like you do with porridge.

Then we left off going to school, and Father said we should go to a good

school as soon as he could manage it. He said a holiday would do us all

good. We thought he was right, but we wished he had told us he couldn’t

afford it. For of course we knew.

Then a great many people used to come to the door with envelopes with

no stamps on them, and sometimes they got very angry, and said they

were calling for the last time before putting it in other hands. I asked

Eliza what that meant, and she kindly explained to me, and I was so

sorry for Father.

And once a long, blue paper came; a policeman brought it, and we were

so frightened. But Father said it was all right, only when he went up

to kiss the girls after they were in bed they said he had been crying,

though I’m sure that’s not true. Because only cowards and snivellers

cry, and my Father is the bravest man in the world.

So you see it was time we looked for treasure and Oswald said so, and

Dora said it was all very well. But the others agreed with Oswald. So we

held a council. Dora was in the chair--the big dining-room chair, that

we let the fireworks off from, the Fifth of November when we had the

measles and couldn’t do it in the garden. The hole has never been

mended, so now we have that chair in the nursery, and I think it was

cheap at the blowing-up we boys got when the hole was burnt.

‘We must do something,’ said Alice, ‘because the exchequer is empty.’

She rattled the money-box as she spoke, and it really did rattle because

we always keep the bad sixpence in it for luck.

‘Yes--but what shall we do?’ said Dicky. ‘It’s so jolly easy to say

let’s do _something_.’ Dicky always wants everything settled exactly.

Father calls him the Definite Article.

‘Let’s read all the books again. We shall get lots of ideas out of

them.’ It was Noel who suggested this, but we made him shut up, because

we knew well enough he only wanted to get back to his old books. Noel

is a poet. He sold some of his poetry once--and it was printed, but that

does not come in this part of the story.

Then Dicky said, ‘Look here. We’ll be quite quiet for ten minutes by

the clock--and each think of some way to find treasure. And when we’ve

thought we’ll try all the ways one after the other, beginning with the

eldest.’

‘I shan’t be able to think in ten minutes, make it half an hour,’ said

H. O. His real name is Horace Octavius, but we call him H. O. because of

the advertisement, and it’s not so very long ago he was afraid to pass

the hoarding where it says ‘Eat H. O.’ in big letters. He says it was

when he was a little boy, but I remember last Christmas but one, he woke

in the middle of the night crying and howling, and they said it was the

pudding. But he told me afterwards he had been dreaming that they really

_had_ come to eat H. O., and it couldn’t have been the pudding, when you

come to think of it, because it was so very plain.

Well, we made it half an hour--and we all sat quiet, and thought and

thought. And I made up my mind before two minutes were over, and I

saw the others had, all but Dora, who is always an awful time over

everything. I got pins and needles in my leg from sitting still so long,

and when it was seven minutes H. O. cried out--‘Oh, it must be more than

half an hour!’

H. O. is eight years old, but he cannot tell the clock yet. Oswald could

tell the clock when he was six.

We all stretched ourselves and began to speak at once, but Dora put up

her hands to her ears and said--

‘One at a time, please. We aren’t playing Babel.’ (It is a very good

game. Did you ever play it?)

So Dora made us all sit in a row on the floor, in ages, and then she

pointed at us with the finger that had the brass thimble on. Her silver

one got lost when the last General but two went away. We think she must

have forgotten it was Dora’s and put it in her box by mistake. She was a

very forgetful girl. She used to forget what she had spent money on, so

that the change was never quite right.

Oswald spoke first. ‘I think we might stop people on Blackheath--with

crape masks and horse-pistols--and say “Your money or your life!

Resistance is useless, we are armed to the teeth”--like Dick Turpin

and Claude Duval. It wouldn’t matter about not having horses, because

coaches have gone out too.’

Dora screwed up her nose the way she always does when she is going to

talk like the good elder sister in books, and said, ‘That would be

very wrong: it’s like pickpocketing or taking pennies out of Father’s

great-coat when it’s hanging in the hall.’

I must say I don’t think she need have said that, especially before the

little ones--for it was when I was only four.

But Oswald was not going to let her see he cared, so he said--

‘Oh, very well. I can think of lots of other ways. We could rescue an

old gentleman from deadly Highwaymen.’

‘There aren’t any,’ said Dora.

‘Oh, well, it’s all the same--from deadly peril, then. There’s plenty

of that. Then he would turn out to be the Prince of Wales, and he would

say, “My noble, my cherished preserver! Here is a million pounds a year.

Rise up, Sir Oswald Bastable.”’

But the others did not seem to think so, and it was Alice’s turn to say.

She said, ‘I think we might try the divining-rod. I’m sure I could do

it. I’ve often read about it. You hold a stick in your hands, and when

you come to where there is gold underneath the stick kicks about. So you

know. And you dig.’

‘Oh,’ said Dora suddenly, ‘I have an idea. But I’ll say last. I hope the

divining-rod isn’t wrong. I believe it’s wrong in the Bible.’

‘So is eating pork and ducks,’ said Dicky. ‘You can’t go by that.’

‘Anyhow, we’ll try the other ways first,’ said Dora. ‘Now, H. O.’

‘Let’s be Bandits,’ said H. O. ‘I dare say it’s wrong but it would be

fun pretending.’

‘I’m sure it’s wrong,’ said Dora.

And Dicky said she thought everything wrong. She said she didn’t, and

Dicky was very disagreeable. So Oswald had to make peace, and he said--

‘Dora needn’t play if she doesn’t want to. Nobody asked her. And, Dicky,

don’t be an idiot: do dry up and let’s hear what Noel’s idea is.’

Dora and Dicky did not look pleased, but I kicked Noel under the table

to make him hurry up, and then he said he didn’t think he wanted to

play any more. That’s the worst of it. The others are so jolly ready to

quarrel. I told Noel to be a man and not a snivelling pig, and at last

he said he had not made up his mind whether he would print his poetry in

a book and sell it, or find a princess and marry her.

‘Whichever it is,’ he added, ‘none of you shall want for anything,

though Oswald did kick me, and say I was a snivelling pig.’

‘I didn’t,’ said Oswald, ‘I told you not to be.’ And Alice explained to

him that that was quite the opposite of what he thought. So he agreed to

drop it.

Then Dicky spoke.

‘You must all of you have noticed the advertisements in the papers,

telling you that ladies and gentlemen can easily earn two pounds a

week in their spare time, and to send two shillings for sample and

instructions, carefully packed free from observation. Now that we don’t

go to school all our time is spare time. So I should think we could

easily earn twenty pounds a week each. That would do us very well. We’ll

try some of the other things first, and directly we have any money we’ll

send for the sample and instructions. And I have another idea, but I

must think about it before I say.’

We all said, ‘Out with it--what’s the other idea?’

But Dicky said, ‘No.’ That is Dicky all over. He never will show you

anything he’s making till it’s quite finished, and the same with his

inmost thoughts. But he is pleased if you seem to want to know, so

Oswald said--

‘Keep your silly old secret, then. Now, Dora, drive ahead. We’ve all

said except you.’

Then Dora jumped up and dropped the stocking and the thimble (it rolled

away, and we did not find it for days), and said--

‘Let’s try my way _now_. Besides, I’m the eldest, so it’s only fair.

Let’s dig for treasure. Not any tiresome divining-rod--but just plain

digging. People who dig for treasure always find it. And then we shall

be rich and we needn’t try your ways at all. Some of them are rather

difficult: and I’m certain some of them are wrong--and we must always

remember that wrong things--’

But we told her to shut up and come on, and she did.

I couldn’t help wondering as we went down to the garden, why Father

had never thought of digging there for treasure instead of going to his

beastly office every day.

CHAPTER 2. DIGGING FOR TREASURE

I am afraid the last chapter was rather dull. It is always dull in books

when people talk and talk, and don’t do anything, but I was obliged to

put it in, or else you wouldn’t have understood all the rest. The best

part of books is when things are happening. That is the best part of

real things too. This is why I shall not tell you in this story about

all the days when nothing happened. You will not catch me saying, ‘thus

the sad days passed slowly by’--or ‘the years rolled on their weary

course’--or ‘time went on’--because it is silly; of course time goes

on--whether you say so or not. So I shall just tell you the nice,

interesting parts--and in between you will understand that we had our

meals and got up and went to bed, and dull things like that. It would be

sickening to write all that down, though of course it happens. I said

so to Albert-next-door’s uncle, who writes books, and he said, ‘Quite

right, that’s what we call selection, a necessity of true art.’ And he

is very clever indeed. So you see.

I have often thought that if the people who write books for children

knew a little more it would be better. I shall not tell you anything

about us except what I should like to know about if I was reading the

story and you were writing it. Albert’s uncle says I ought to have put

this in the preface, but I never read prefaces, and it is not much good

writing things just for people to skip. I wonder other authors have

never thought of this.

Well, when we had agreed to dig for treasure we all went down into the

cellar and lighted the gas. Oswald would have liked to dig there, but

it is stone flags. We looked among the old boxes and broken chairs and

fenders and empty bottles and things, and at last we found the spades we

had to dig in the sand with when we went to the seaside three years ago.

They are not silly, babyish, wooden spades, that split if you look at

them, but good iron, with a blue mark across the top of the iron part,

and yellow wooden handles. We wasted a little time getting them dusted,

because the girls wouldn’t dig with spades that had cobwebs on them.

Girls would never do for African explorers or anything like that, they

are too beastly particular.

It was no use doing the thing by halves. We marked out a sort of square

in the mouldy part of the garden, about three yards across, and began

to dig. But we found nothing except worms and stones--and the ground was

very hard.

So we thought we’d try another part of the garden, and we found a

place in the big round flower bed, where the ground was much softer. We

thought we’d make a smaller hole to begin with, and it was much better.

We dug and dug and dug, and it was jolly hard work! We got very hot

digging, but we found nothing.

Presently Albert-next-door looked over the wall. We do not like him very

much, but we let him play with us sometimes, because his father is dead,

and you must not be unkind to orphans, even if their mothers are

alive. Albert is always very tidy. He wears frilly collars and velvet

knickerbockers. I can’t think how he can bear to.

So we said, ‘Hallo!’

And he said, ‘What are you up to?’

‘We’re digging for treasure,’ said Alice; ‘an ancient parchment revealed

to us the place of concealment. Come over and help us. When we have

dug deep enough we shall find a great pot of red clay, full of gold and

precious jewels.’

Albert-next-door only sniggered and said, ‘What silly nonsense!’ He

cannot play properly at all. It is very strange, because he has a very

nice uncle. You see, Albert-next-door doesn’t care for reading, and he

has not read nearly so many books as we have, so he is very foolish and

ignorant, but it cannot be helped, and you just have to put up with it

when you want him to do anything. Besides, it is wrong to be angry with

people for not being so clever as you are yourself. It is not always

their faults.

So Oswald said, ‘Come and dig! Then you shall share the treasure when

we’ve found it.’

But he said, ‘I shan’t--I don’t like digging--and I’m just going in to

my tea.’

‘Come along and dig, there’s a good boy,’ Alice said. ‘You can use my

spade. It’s much the best--’

So he came along and dug, and when once he was over the wall we kept him

at it, and we worked as well, of course, and the hole got deep. Pincher

worked too--he is our dog and he is very good at digging. He digs for

rats in the dustbin sometimes, and gets very dirty. But we love our dog,

even when his face wants washing.

‘I expect we shall have to make a tunnel,’ Oswald said, ‘to reach the

rich treasure.’ So he jumped into the hole and began to dig at one side.

After that we took it in turns to dig at the tunnel, and Pincher was

most useful in scraping the earth out of the tunnel--he does it with

his back feet when you say ‘Rats!’ and he digs with his front ones, and

burrows with his nose as well.

At last the tunnel was nearly a yard long, and big enough to creep

along to find the treasure, if only it had been a bit longer. Now it was

Albert’s turn to go in and dig, but he funked it.

‘Take your turn like a man,’ said Oswald--nobody can say that Oswald

doesn’t take his turn like a man. But Albert wouldn’t. So we had to make

him, because it was only fair.

‘It’s quite easy,’ Alice said. ‘You just crawl in and dig with your

hands. Then when you come out we can scrape out what you’ve done, with

the spades. Come--be a man. You won’t notice it being dark in the tunnel

if you shut your eyes tight. We’ve all been in except Dora--and she

doesn’t like worms.’

‘I don’t like worms neither.’ Albert-next-door said this; but we

remembered how he had picked a fat red and black worm up in his fingers

and thrown it at Dora only the day before. So we put him in.

But he would not go in head first, the proper way, and dig with his

hands as we had done, and though Oswald was angry at the time, for he

hates snivellers, yet afterwards he owned that perhaps it was just

as well. You should never be afraid to own that perhaps you were

mistaken--but it is cowardly to do it unless you are quite sure you are

in the wrong.

‘Let me go in feet first,’ said Albert-next-door. ‘I’ll dig with my

boots--I will truly, honour bright.’

So we let him get in feet first--and he did it very slowly and at last

he was in, and only his head sticking out into the hole; and all the

rest of him in the tunnel.

‘Now dig with your boots,’ said Oswald; ‘and, Alice, do catch hold of

Pincher, he’ll be digging again in another minute, and perhaps it would

be uncomfortable for Albert if Pincher threw the mould into his eyes.’

You should always try to think of these little things. Thinking of other

people’s comfort makes them like you. Alice held Pincher, and we all

shouted, ‘Kick! dig with your feet, for all you’re worth!’

So Albert-next-door began to dig with his feet, and we stood on the

ground over him, waiting--and all in a minute the ground gave way, and

we tumbled together in a heap: and when we got up there was a little

shallow hollow where we had been standing, and Albert-next-door was

underneath, stuck quite fast, because the roof of the tunnel had tumbled

in on him. He is a horribly unlucky boy to have anything to do with.

It was dreadful the way he cried and screamed, though he had to own it

didn’t hurt, only it was rather heavy and he couldn’t move his legs. We

would have dug him out all right enough, in time, but he screamed so we

were afraid the police would come, so Dicky climbed over the wall, to

tell the cook there to tell Albert-next-door’s uncle he had been buried

by mistake, and to come and help dig him out.

Dicky was a long time gone. We wondered what had become of him, and all

the while the screaming went on and on, for we had taken the loose earth

off Albert’s face so that he could scream quite easily and comfortably.

Presently Dicky came back and Albert-next-door’s uncle came with him. He

has very long legs, and his hair is light and his face is brown. He has

been to sea, but now he writes books. I like him.

He told his nephew to stow it, so Albert did, and then he asked him if

he was hurt--and Albert had to say he wasn’t, for though he is a coward,

and very unlucky, he is not a liar like some boys are.

‘This promises to be a protracted if agreeable task,’ said

Albert-next-door’s uncle, rubbing his hands and looking at the hole with

Albert’s head in it. ‘I will get another spade,’ so he fetched the big

spade out of the next-door garden tool-shed, and began to dig his nephew

out.

‘Mind you keep very still,’ he said, ‘or I might chunk a bit out of you

with the spade.’ Then after a while he said--

‘I confess that I am not absolutely insensible to the dramatic interest

of the situation. My curiosity is excited. I own that I should like to

know how my nephew happened to be buried. But don’t tell me if you’d

rather not. I suppose no force was used?’

‘Only moral force,’ said Alice. They used to talk a lot about moral

force at the High School where she went, and in case you don’t know what

it means I’ll tell you that it is making people do what they don’t want

to, just by slanging them, or laughing at them, or promising them things

if they’re good.

‘Only moral force, eh?’ said Albert-next-door’s uncle. ‘Well?’

‘Well,’ Dora said, ‘I’m very sorry it happened to Albert--I’d rather it

had been one of us. It would have been my turn to go into the tunnel,

only I don’t like worms, so they let me off. You see we were digging for

treasure.’

‘Yes,’ said Alice, ‘and I think we were just coming to the underground

passage that leads to the secret hoard, when the tunnel fell in on

Albert. He _is_ so unlucky,’ and she sighed.

Then Albert-next-door began to scream again, and his uncle wiped his

face--his own face, not Albert’s--with his silk handkerchief, and then

he put it in his trousers pocket. It seems a strange place to put a

handkerchief, but he had his coat and waistcoat off and I suppose he

wanted the handkerchief handy. Digging is warm work.

He told Albert-next-door to drop it, or he wouldn’t proceed further

in the matter, so Albert stopped screaming, and presently his uncle

finished digging him out. Albert did look so funny, with his hair all

dusty and his velvet suit covered with mould and his face muddy with

earth and crying.

We all said how sorry we were, but he wouldn’t say a word back to us. He

was most awfully sick to think he’d been the one buried, when it might

just as well have been one of us. I felt myself that it was hard lines.

‘So you were digging for treasure,’ said Albert-next-door’s uncle,

wiping his face again with his handkerchief. ‘Well, I fear that your

chances of success are small. I have made a careful study of the whole

subject. What I don’t know about buried treasure is not worth knowing.

And I never knew more than one coin buried in any one garden--and that

is generally--Hullo--what’s that?’

He pointed to something shining in the hole he had just dragged Albert

out of. Oswald picked it up. It was a half-crown. We looked at each

other, speechless with surprise and delight, like in books.

‘Well, that’s lucky, at all events,’ said Albert-next-door’s uncle.

‘Let’s see, that’s fivepence each for you.’

‘It’s fourpence--something; I can’t do fractions,’ said Dicky; ‘there

are seven of us, you see.’

‘Oh, you count Albert as one of yourselves on this occasion, eh?’

‘Of course,’ said Alice; ‘and I say, he was buried after all. Why

shouldn’t we let him have the odd somethings, and we’ll have fourpence

each.’

We all agreed to do this, and told Albert-next-door we would bring his

share as soon as we could get the half-crown changed. He cheered up a

little at that, and his uncle wiped his face again--he did look hot--and

began to put on his coat and waistcoat.

When he had done it he stooped and picked up something. He held it up,

and you will hardly believe it, but it is quite true--it was another

half-crown!

‘To think that there should be two!’ he said; ‘in all my experience of

buried treasure I never heard of such a thing!’

I wish Albert-next-door’s uncle would come treasure-seeking with us

regularly; he must have very sharp eyes: for Dora says she was looking

just the minute before at the very place where the second half-crown was

picked up from, and _she_ never saw it.

CHAPTER 3. BEING DETECTIVES

The next thing that happened to us was very interesting. It was as real

as the half-crowns--not just pretending. I shall try to write it as like

a real book as I can. Of course we have read Mr Sherlock Holmes, as

well as the yellow-covered books with pictures outside that are so badly

printed; and you get them for fourpence-halfpenny at the bookstall when

the corners of them are beginning to curl up and get dirty, with people

looking to see how the story ends when they are waiting for trains. I

think this is most unfair to the boy at the bookstall. The books are

written by a gentleman named Gaboriau, and Albert’s uncle says they are

the worst translations in the world--and written in vile English. Of

course they’re not like Kipling, but they’re jolly good stories. And we

had just been reading a book by Dick Diddlington--that’s not his right

name, but I know all about libel actions, so I shall not say what his

name is really, because his books are rot. Only they put it into our

heads to do what I am going to narrate.

It was in September, and we were not to go to the seaside because it is

so expensive, even if you go to Sheerness, where it is all tin cans and

old boots and no sand at all. But every one else went, even the people

next door--not Albert’s side, but the other. Their servant told Eliza

they were all going to Scarborough, and next day sure enough all the

blinds were down and the shutters up, and the milk was not left any

more. There is a big horse-chestnut tree between their garden and ours,

very useful for getting conkers out of and for making stuff to rub on

your chilblains. This prevented our seeing whether the blinds were

down at the back as well, but Dicky climbed to the top of the tree and

looked, and they were.

It was jolly hot weather, and very stuffy indoors--we used to play a

good deal in the garden. We made a tent out of the kitchen clothes-horse

and some blankets off our beds, and though it was quite as hot in the

tent as in the house it was a very different sort of hotness. Albert’s

uncle called it the Turkish Bath. It is not nice to be kept from the

seaside, but we know that we have much to be thankful for. We might be

poor little children living in a crowded alley where even at summer

noon hardly a ray of sunlight penetrates; clothed in rags and with bare

feet--though I do not mind holes in my clothes myself, and bare

feet would not be at all bad in this sort of weather. Indeed we do,

sometimes, when we are playing at things which require it. It was

shipwrecked mariners that day, I remember, and we were all in the

blanket tent. We had just finished eating the things we had saved, at

the peril of our lives, from the fast-sinking vessel. They were rather

nice things. Two-pennyworth of coconut candy--it was got in Greenwich,

where it is four ounces a penny--three apples, some macaroni--the

straight sort that is so useful to suck things through--some raw rice,

and a large piece of cold suet pudding that Alice nicked from the larder

when she went to get the rice and macaroni. And when we had finished

some one said--

‘I should like to be a detective.’

I wish to be quite fair, but I cannot remember exactly who said it.

Oswald thinks he said it, and Dora says it was Dicky, but Oswald is too

much of a man to quarrel about a little thing like that.

‘I should like to be a detective,’ said--perhaps it was Dicky, but I

think not--‘and find out strange and hidden crimes.’

‘You have to be much cleverer than you are,’ said H. O.

‘Not so very,’ Alice said, ‘because when you’ve read the books you know

what the things mean: the red hair on the handle of the knife, or the

grains of white powder on the velvet collar of the villain’s overcoat. I

believe we could do it.’

‘I shouldn’t like to have anything to do with murders,’ said Dora;

‘somehow it doesn’t seem safe--’

‘And it always ends in the poor murderer being hanged,’ said Alice.

We explained to her why murderers have to be hanged, but she only said,

‘I don’t care. I’m sure no one would ever do murdering _twice_. Think

of the blood and things, and what you would see when you woke up in the

night! I shouldn’t mind being a detective to lie in wait for a gang

of coiners, now, and spring upon them unawares, and secure

them--single-handed, you know, or with only my faithful bloodhound.’

She stroked Pincher’s ears, but he had gone to sleep because he knew

well enough that all the suet pudding was finished. He is a very

sensible dog. ‘You always get hold of the wrong end of the stick,’

Oswald said. ‘You can’t choose what crimes you’ll be a detective about.

You just have to get a suspicious circumstance, and then you look for a

clue and follow it up. Whether it turns out a murder or a missing will

is just a fluke.’

‘That’s one way,’ Dicky said. ‘Another is to get a paper and find

two advertisements or bits of news that fit. Like this: “Young Lady

Missing,” and then it tells about all the clothes she had on, and the

gold locket she wore, and the colour of her hair, and all that; and then

in another piece of the paper you see, “Gold locket found,” and then it

all comes out.’

We sent H. O. for the paper at once, but we could not make any of the

things fit in. The two best were about how some burglars broke into

a place in Holloway where they made preserved tongues and invalid

delicacies, and carried off a lot of them. And on another page there

was, ‘Mysterious deaths in Holloway.’

Oswald thought there was something in it, and so did Albert’s uncle when

we asked him, but the others thought not, so Oswald agreed to drop it.

Besides, Holloway is a long way off. All the time we were talking about

the paper Alice seemed to be thinking about something else, and when we

had done she said--

‘I believe we might be detectives ourselves, but I should not like to

get anybody into trouble.’

‘Not murderers or robbers?’ Dicky asked.

‘It wouldn’t be murderers,’ she said; ‘but I _have_ noticed something

strange. Only I feel a little frightened. Let’s ask Albert’s uncle

first.’

Alice is a jolly sight too fond of asking grown-up people things. And we

all said it was tommyrot, and she was to tell us.

‘Well, promise you won’t do anything without me,’ Alice said, and we

promised. Then she said--

‘This is a dark secret, and any one who thinks it is better not to be

involved in a career of crime-discovery had better go away ere yet it be

too late.’

So Dora said she had had enough of tents, and she was going to look at

the shops. H. O. went with her because he had twopence to spend. They

thought it was only a game of Alice’s but Oswald knew by the way she

spoke. He can nearly always tell. And when people are not telling the

truth Oswald generally knows by the way they look with their eyes.

Oswald is not proud of being able to do this. He knows it is through no

merit of his own that he is much cleverer than some people.

When they had gone, the rest of us got closer together and said--

‘Now then.’

‘Well,’ Alice said, ‘you know the house next door? The people have gone

to Scarborough. And the house is shut up. But last night _I saw a light

in the windows_.’

We asked her how and when, because her room is in the front, and she

couldn’t possibly have seen. And then she said--

‘I’ll tell you if you boys will promise not ever to go fishing again

without me.’

So we had to promise.

Then she said--

‘It was last night. I had forgotten to feed my rabbits and I woke up and

remembered it. And I was afraid I should find them dead in the morning,

like Oswald did.’

‘It wasn’t my fault,’ Oswald said; ‘there was something the matter with

the beasts. I fed them right enough.’

Alice said she didn’t mean that, and she went on--

‘I came down into the garden, and I saw a light in the house, and dark

figures moving about. I thought perhaps it was burglars, but Father

hadn’t come home, and Eliza had gone to bed, so I couldn’t do anything.

Only I thought perhaps I would tell the rest of you.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us this morning?’ Noel asked. And Alice explained

that she did not want to get any one into trouble, even burglars. ‘But

we might watch to-night,’ she said, ‘and see if we see the light again.’

‘They might have been burglars,’ Noel said. He was sucking the last bit

of his macaroni. ‘You know the people next door are very grand. They

won’t know us--and they go out in a real private carriage sometimes. And

they have an “At Home” day, and people come in cabs. I daresay they have

piles of plate and jewellery and rich brocades, and furs of price and

things like that. Let us keep watch to-night.’

‘It’s no use watching to-night,’ Dicky said; ‘if it’s only burglars they

won’t come again. But there are other things besides burglars that are

discovered in empty houses where lights are seen moving.’

‘You mean coiners,’ said Oswald at once. ‘I wonder what the reward is

for setting the police on their track?’

Dicky thought it ought to be something fat, because coiners are always

a desperate gang; and the machinery they make the coins with is so heavy

and handy for knocking down detectives.

Then it was tea-time, and we went in; and Dora and H. O. had clubbed

their money together and bought a melon; quite a big one, and only a

little bit squashy at one end. It was very good, and then we washed the

seeds and made things with them and with pins and cotton. And nobody

said any more about watching the house next door.

Only when we went to bed Dicky took off his coat and waistcoat, but he

stopped at his braces, and said--

‘What about the coiners?’

Oswald had taken off his collar and tie, and he was just going to say

the same, so he said, ‘Of course I meant to watch, only my collar’s

rather tight, so I thought I’d take it off first.’

Dicky said he did not think the girls ought to be in it, because there

might be danger, but Oswald reminded him that they had promised Alice,

and that a promise is a sacred thing, even when you’d much rather

not. So Oswald got Alice alone under pretence of showing her a

caterpillar--Dora does not like them, and she screamed and ran away when

Oswald offered to show it her. Then Oswald explained, and Alice agreed

to come and watch if she could. This made us later than we ought to have

been, because Alice had to wait till Dora was quiet and then creep out

very slowly, for fear of the boards creaking. The girls sleep with their

room-door open for fear of burglars. Alice had kept on her clothes

under her nightgown when Dora wasn’t looking, and presently we got down,

creeping past Father’s study, and out at the glass door that leads on

to the veranda and the iron steps into the garden. And we went down very

quietly, and got into the chestnut-tree; and then I felt that we had

only been playing what Albert’s uncle calls our favourite instrument--I

mean the Fool. For the house next door was as dark as dark. Then

suddenly we heard a sound--it came from the gate at the end of the

garden. All the gardens have gates; they lead into a kind of lane that

runs behind them. It is a sort of back way, very convenient when you

don’t want to say exactly where you are going. We heard the gate at the

end of the next garden click, and Dicky nudged Alice so that she

would have fallen out of the tree if it had not been for Oswald’s

extraordinary presence of mind. Oswald squeezed Alice’s arm tight, and

we all looked; and the others were rather frightened because really we

had not exactly expected anything to happen except perhaps a light. But

now a muffled figure, shrouded in a dark cloak, came swiftly up the

path of the next-door garden. And we could see that under its cloak the

figure carried a mysterious burden. The figure was dressed to look like

a woman in a sailor hat.

We held our breath as it passed under the tree where we were, and then

it tapped very gently on the back door and was let in, and then a light

appeared in the window of the downstairs back breakfast-room. But the

shutters were up.

Dicky said, ‘My eye!’ and wouldn’t the others be sick to think they

hadn’t been in this! But Alice didn’t half like it--and as she is a girl

I do not blame her. Indeed, I thought myself at first that perhaps

it would be better to retire for the present, and return later with a

strongly armed force.

‘It’s not burglars,’ Alice whispered; ‘the mysterious stranger was

bringing things in, not taking them out. They must be coiners--and oh,

Oswald!--don’t let’s! The things they coin with must hurt very much. Do

let’s go to bed!’

But Dicky said he was going to see; if there was a reward for finding

out things like this he would like to have the reward.

‘They locked the back door,’ he whispered, ‘I heard it go. And I could

look in quite well through the holes in the shutters and be back over

the wall long before they’d got the door open, even if they started to

do it at once.’

There were holes at the top of the shutters the shape of hearts, and the

yellow light came out through them as well as through the chinks of the

shutters.

Oswald said if Dicky went he should, because he was the eldest; and

Alice said, ‘If any one goes it ought to be me, because I thought of

it.’

So Oswald said, ‘Well, go then’; and she said, ‘Not for anything!’ And

she begged us not to, and we talked about it in the tree till we were

all quite hoarse with whispering.

At last we decided on a plan of action.

Alice was to stay in the tree, and scream ‘Murder!’ if anything

happened. Dicky and I were to get down into the next garden and take it

in turns to peep.

So we got down as quietly as we could, but the tree made much more noise

than it does in the day, and several times we paused, fearing that all

was discovered. But nothing happened.

There was a pile of red flower-pots under the window and one very large

one was on the window-ledge. It seemed as if it was the hand of Destiny

had placed it there, and the geranium in it was dead, and there was

nothing to stop your standing on it--so Oswald did. He went first

because he is the eldest, and though Dicky tried to stop him because he

thought of it first it could not be, on account of not being able to say

anything.

So Oswald stood on the flower-pot and tried to look through one of the

holes. He did not really expect to see the coiners at their fell work,

though he had pretended to when we were talking in the tree. But if he

had seen them pouring the base molten metal into tin moulds the shape of

half-crowns he would not have been half so astonished as he was at the

spectacle now revealed.

At first he could see little, because the hole had unfortunately been

made a little too high, so that the eye of the detective could only see

the Prodigal Son in a shiny frame on the opposite wall. But Oswald held

on to the window-frame and stood on tiptoe and then he _saw_.

There was no furnace, and no base metal, no bearded men in leathern

aprons with tongs and things, but just a table with a table-cloth on it

for supper, and a tin of salmon and a lettuce and some bottled beer. And

there on a chair was the cloak and the hat of the mysterious stranger,

and the two people sitting at the table were the two youngest grown-up

daughters of the lady next door, and one of them was saying--

‘So I got the salmon three-halfpence cheaper, and the lettuces are only

six a penny in the Broadway, just fancy! We must save as much as ever we

can on our housekeeping money if we want to go away decent next year.’

And the other said, ‘I wish we could _all_ go _every_ year, or

else--Really, I almost wish--’

And all the time Oswald was looking Dicky was pulling at his jacket to

make him get down and let Dicky have a squint. And just as she said ‘I

almost,’ Dicky pulled too hard and Oswald felt himself toppling on the

giddy verge of the big flower-pots. Putting forth all his strength our

hero strove to recover his equi-what’s-its-name, but it was now lost

beyond recall.

‘You’ve done it this time!’ he said, then he fell heavily among the

flower-pots piled below. He heard them crash and rattle and crack, and

then his head struck against an iron pillar used for holding up the

next-door veranda. His eyes closed and he knew no more.

Now you will perhaps expect that at this moment Alice would have cried

‘Murder!’ If you think so you little know what girls are. Directly she

was left alone in that tree she made a bolt to tell Albert’s uncle all

about it and bring him to our rescue in case the coiner’s gang was a

very desperate one. And just when I fell, Albert’s uncle was getting

over the wall. Alice never screamed at all when Oswald fell, but Dicky

thinks he heard Albert’s uncle say, ‘Confound those kids!’ which would

not have been kind or polite, so I hope he did not say it.

The people next door did not come out to see what the row was. Albert’s

uncle did not wait for them to come out. He picked up Oswald and carried

the insensible body of the gallant young detective to the wall, laid it

on the top, and then climbed over and bore his lifeless burden into our

house and put it on the sofa in Father’s study. Father was out, so

we needn’t have _crept_ so when we were getting into the garden. Then

Oswald was restored to consciousness, and his head tied up, and sent

to bed, and next day there was a lump on his young brow as big as a

turkey’s egg, and very uncomfortable.

Albert’s uncle came in next day and talked to each of us separately.

To Oswald he said many unpleasant things about ungentlemanly to spy on

ladies, and about minding your own business; and when I began to tell

him what I had heard he told me to shut up, and altogether he made me

more uncomfortable than the bump did.

Oswald did not say anything to any one, but next day, as the shadows of

eve were falling, he crept away, and wrote on a piece of paper, ‘I want

to speak to you,’ and shoved it through the hole like a heart in the top

of the next-door shutters. And the youngest young lady put an eye to

the heart-shaped hole, and then opened the shutter and said ‘Well?’ very

crossly. Then Oswald said--

‘I am very sorry, and I beg your pardon. We wanted to be detectives, and

we thought a gang of coiners infested your house, so we looked through

your window last night. I saw the lettuce, and I heard what you said

about the salmon being three-halfpence cheaper, and I know it is very

dishonourable to pry into other people’s secrets, especially ladies’,

and I never will again if you will forgive me this once.’

Then the lady frowned and then she laughed, and then she said--

‘So it was you tumbling into the flower-pots last night? We thought it

was burglars. It frightened us horribly. Why, what a bump on your poor

head!’

And then she talked to me a bit, and presently she said she and her

sister had not wished people to know they were at home, because--And

then she stopped short and grew very red, and I said, ‘I thought you

were all at Scarborough; your servant told Eliza so. Why didn’t you want

people to know you were at home?’

The lady got redder still, and then she laughed and said--

‘Never mind the reason why. I hope your head doesn’t hurt much. Thank

you for your nice, manly little speech. _You’ve_ nothing to be ashamed

of, at any rate.’ Then she kissed me, and I did not mind. And then she

said, ‘Run away now, dear. I’m going to--I’m going to pull up the blinds

and open the shutters, and I want to do it at _once_, before it gets

dark, so that every one can see we’re at home, and not at Scarborough.’

CHAPTER 4. GOOD HUNTING

When we had got that four shillings by digging for treasure we ought, by

rights, to have tried Dicky’s idea of answering the advertisement about

ladies and gentlemen and spare time and two pounds a week, but there

were several things we rather wanted.

Dora wanted a new pair of scissors, and she said she was going to get

them with her eight-pence. But Alice said--

‘You ought to get her those, Oswald, because you know you broke the

points off hers getting the marble out of the brass thimble.’

It was quite true, though I had almost forgotten it, but then it was H.

O. who jammed the marble into the thimble first of all. So I said--

‘It’s H. O.’s fault as much as mine, anyhow. Why shouldn’t he pay?’

Oswald didn’t so much mind paying for the beastly scissors, but he hates

injustice of every kind.

‘He’s such a little kid,’ said Dicky, and of course H. O. said he wasn’t

a little kid, and it very nearly came to being a row between them. But

Oswald knows when to be generous; so he said--

‘Look here! I’ll pay sixpence of the scissors, and H. O. shall pay the

rest, to teach him to be careful.’

H. O. agreed: he is not at all a mean kid, but I found out afterwards

that Alice paid his share out of her own money.

Then we wanted some new paints, and Noel wanted a pencil and a halfpenny

account-book to write poetry with, and it does seem hard never to have

any apples. So, somehow or other nearly all the money got spent, and we

agreed that we must let the advertisement run loose a little longer.

‘I only hope,’ Alice said, ‘that they won’t have got all the ladies and

gentlemen they want before we have got the money to write for the sample

and instructions.’

And I was a little afraid myself, because it seemed such a splendid

chance; but we looked in the paper every day, and the advertisement was

always there, so we thought it was all right.

Then we had the detective try-on--and it proved no go; and then, when

all the money was gone, except a halfpenny of mine and twopence of

Noel’s and three-pence of Dicky’s and a few pennies that the girls had

left, we held another council.

Dora was sewing the buttons on H. O.’s Sunday things. He got himself a

knife with his money, and he cut every single one of his best buttons

off. You’ve no idea how many buttons there are on a suit. Dora counted

them. There are twenty-four, counting the little ones on the sleeves

that don’t undo.

Alice was trying to teach Pincher to beg; but he has too much sense

when he knows you’ve got nothing in your hands, and the rest of us were

roasting potatoes under the fire. We had made a fire on purpose,

though it was rather warm. They are very good if you cut away the burnt

parts--but you ought to wash them first, or you are a dirty boy.

‘Well, what can we do?’ said Dicky. ‘You are so fond of saying “Let’s do

something!” and never saying what.’

‘We can’t try the advertisement yet. Shall we try rescuing some one?’

said Oswald. It was his own idea, but he didn’t insist on doing it,

though he is next to the eldest, for he knows it is bad manners to make

people do what you want, when they would rather not.

‘What was Noel’s plan?’ Alice asked.

‘A Princess or a poetry book,’ said Noel sleepily. He was lying on his

back on the sofa, kicking his legs. ‘Only I shall look for the Princess

all by myself. But I’ll let you see her when we’re married.’

‘Have you got enough poetry to make a book?’ Dicky asked that, and it

was rather sensible of him, because when Noel came to look there were

only seven of his poems that any of us could understand. There was the

‘Wreck of the Malabar’, and the poem he wrote when Eliza took us to hear

the Reviving Preacher, and everybody cried, and Father said it must have

been the Preacher’s Eloquence. So Noel wrote:

O Eloquence and what art thou?

Ay what art thou? because we cried

And everybody cried inside

When they came out their eyes were red--

And it was your doing Father said.

But Noel told Alice he got the first line and a half from a book a boy

at school was going to write when he had time. Besides this there were

the ‘Lines on a Dead Black Beetle that was poisoned’--

O Beetle how I weep to see

Thee lying on thy poor back!

It is so very sad indeed.

You were so shiny and black.

I wish you were alive again

But Eliza says wishing it is nonsense and a shame.

It was very good beetle poison, and there were hundreds of them lying

dead--but Noel only wrote a piece of poetry for one of them. He said he

hadn’t time to do them all, and the worst of it was he didn’t know which

one he’d written it to--so Alice couldn’t bury the beetle and put the

lines on its grave, though she wanted to very much.

Well, it was quite plain that there wasn’t enough poetry for a book.

‘We might wait a year or two,’ said Noel. ‘I shall be sure to make some

more some time. I thought of a piece about a fly this morning that knew

condensed milk was sticky.’

‘But we want the money _now_,’ said Dicky, ‘and you can go on writing

just the same. It will come in some time or other.’

‘There’s poetry in newspapers,’ said Alice. ‘Down, Pincher! you’ll never

be a clever dog, so it’s no good trying.’

‘Do they pay for it?’ Dicky thought of that; he often thinks of things

that are really important, even if they are a little dull.

‘I don’t know. But I shouldn’t think any one would let them print their

poetry without. I wouldn’t I know.’ That was Dora; but Noel said he

wouldn’t mind if he didn’t get paid, so long as he saw his poetry

printed and his name at the end.

‘We might try, anyway,’ said Oswald. He is always willing to give other

people’s ideas a fair trial.

So we copied out ‘The Wreck of the Malabar’ and the other six poems on

drawing-paper--Dora did it, she writes best--and Oswald drew a picture

of the Malabar going down with all hands. It was a full-rigged schooner,

and all the ropes and sails were correct; because my cousin is in the

Navy, and he showed me.

We thought a long time whether we’d write a letter and send it by post

with the poetry--and Dora thought it would be best. But Noel said he

couldn’t bear not to know at once if the paper would print the poetry,

So we decided to take it.

I went with Noel, because I am the eldest, and he is not old enough to

go to London by himself. Dicky said poetry was rot--and he was glad he

hadn’t got to make a fool of himself. That was because there was not

enough money for him to go with us. H. O. couldn’t come either, but

he came to the station to see us off, and waved his cap and called out

‘Good hunting!’ as the train started.

There was a lady in spectacles in the corner. She was writing with a

pencil on the edges of long strips of paper that had print all down

them. When the train started she asked--

‘What was that he said?’

So Oswald answered--

‘It was “Good hunting”--it’s out of the Jungle Book!’ ‘That’s very

pleasant to hear,’ the lady said; ‘I am very pleased to meet people who

know their Jungle Book. And where are you off to--the Zoological Gardens

to look for Bagheera?’

We were pleased, too, to meet some one who knew the Jungle Book.

So Oswald said--

‘We are going to restore the fallen fortunes of the House of

Bastable--and we have all thought of different ways--and we’re going to

try them all. Noel’s way is poetry. I suppose great poets get paid?’

The lady laughed--she was awfully jolly--and said she was a sort of

poet, too, and the long strips of paper were the proofs of her new book

of stories. Because before a book is made into a real book with pages

and a cover, they sometimes print it all on strips of paper, and the

writer make marks on it with a pencil to show the printers what idiots

they are not to understand what a writer means to have printed.

We told her all about digging for treasure, and what we meant to do.

Then she asked to see Noel’s poetry--and he said he didn’t like--so she

said, ‘Look here--if you’ll show me yours I’ll show you some of mine.’

So he agreed.

The jolly lady read Noel’s poetry, and she said she liked it very much.

And she thought a great deal of the picture of the Malabar. And then she

said, ‘I write serious poetry like yours myself; too, but I have a piece

here that I think you will like because it’s about a boy.’ She gave it

to us--and so I can copy it down, and I will, for it shows that some

grown-up ladies are not so silly as others. I like it better than Noel’s

poetry, though I told him I did not, because he looked as if he was

going to cry. This was very wrong, for you should always speak the

truth, however unhappy it makes people. And I generally do. But I did

not want him crying in the railway carriage. The lady’s piece of poetry:

Oh when I wake up in my bed

And see the sun all fat and red,

I’m glad to have another day

For all my different kinds of play.

There are so many things to do--

The things that make a man of you,

If grown-ups did not get so vexed

And wonder what you will do next.

I often wonder whether they

Ever made up our kinds of play--

If they were always good as gold

And only did what they were told.

They like you best to play with tops

And toys in boxes, bought in shops;

They do not even know the names

Of really interesting games.

They will not let you play with fire

Or trip your sister up with wire,

They grudge the tea-tray for a drum,

Or booby-traps when callers come.

They don’t like fishing, and it’s true

You sometimes soak a suit or two:

They look on fireworks, though they’re dry,

With quite a disapproving eye.

They do not understand the way

To get the most out of your day:

They do not know how hunger feels

Nor what you need between your meals.

And when you’re sent to bed at night,

They’re happy, but they’re not polite.

For through the door you hear them say:

‘_He’s_ done _his_ mischief for the day!’

She told us a lot of other pieces but I cannot remember them, and she

talked to us all the way up, and when we got nearly to Cannon Street she

said--

‘I’ve got two new shillings here! Do you think they would help to smooth

the path to Fame?’

Noel said, ‘Thank you,’ and was going to take the shilling. But Oswald,

who always remembers what he is told, said--

‘Thank you very much, but Father told us we ought never to take anything

from strangers.’

‘That’s a nasty one,’ said the lady--she didn’t talk a bit like a real

lady, but more like a jolly sort of grown-up boy in a dress and hat--‘a

very nasty one! But don’t you think as Noel and I are both poets I might

be considered a sort of relation? You’ve heard of brother poets, haven’t

you? Don’t you think Noel and I are aunt and nephew poets, or some

relationship of that kind?’

I didn’t know what to say, and she went on--

‘It’s awfully straight of you to stick to what your Father tells you,

but look here, you take the shillings, and here’s my card. When you

get home tell your Father all about it, and if he says No, you can just

bring the shillings back to me.’

So we took the shillings, and she shook hands with us and said,

‘Good-bye, and good hunting!’

We did tell Father about it, and he said it was all right, and when

he looked at the card he told us we were highly honoured, for the lady

wrote better poetry than any other lady alive now. We had never heard of

her, and she seemed much too jolly for a poet. Good old Kipling! We owe

him those two shillings, as well as the Jungle books!

CHAPTER 5. THE POET AND THE EDITOR

It was not bad sport--being in London entirely on our own hook. We asked

the way to Fleet Street, where Father says all the newspaper offices

are. They said straight on down Ludgate Hill--but it turned out to be

quite another way. At least _we_ didn’t go straight on.

We got to St Paul’s. Noel _would_ go in, and we saw where Gordon was

buried--at least the monument. It is very flat, considering what a man

he was.

When we came out we walked a long way, and when we asked a policeman he

said we’d better go back through Smithfield. So we did. They don’t burn

people any more there now, so it was rather dull, besides being a long

way, and Noel got very tired. He’s a peaky little chap; it comes of

being a poet, I think. We had a bun or two at different shops--out of

the shillings--and it was quite late in the afternoon when we got to

Fleet Street. The gas was lighted and the electric lights. There is a

jolly Bovril sign that comes off and on in different coloured lamps. We

went to the Daily Recorder office, and asked to see the Editor. It is a

big office, very bright, with brass and mahogany and electric lights.

They told us the Editor wasn’t there, but at another office. So we went

down a dirty street, to a very dull-looking place. There was a man there

inside, in a glass case, as if he was a museum, and he told us to write

down our names and our business. So Oswald wrote--

OSWALD BASTABLE

NOEL BASTABLE

BUSINESS VERY PRIVATE INDEED

Then we waited on the stone stairs; it was very draughty. And the man in

the glass case looked at us as if we were the museum instead of him. We

waited a long time, and then a boy came down and said--

‘The Editor can’t see you. Will you please write your business?’ And he

laughed. I wanted to punch his head.

But Noel said, ‘Yes, I’ll write it if you’ll give me a pen and ink, and

a sheet of paper and an envelope.’

The boy said he’d better write by post. But Noel is a bit pig-headed;

it’s his worst fault. So he said--‘No, I’ll write it _now_.’ So I backed

him up by saying--

‘Look at the price penny stamps are since the coal strike!’

So the boy grinned, and the man in the glass case gave us pen and paper,

and Noel wrote. Oswald writes better than he does; but Noel would do it;

and it took a very long time, and then it was inky.

DEAR MR EDITOR, I want you to print my poetry and pay for it,

and I am a friend of Mrs Leslie’s; she is a poet too.

Your affectionate friend,

NOEL BASTABLE.

He licked the envelope a good deal, so that that boy shouldn’t read it

going upstairs; and he wrote ‘Very private’ outside, and gave the letter

to the boy. I thought it wasn’t any good; but in a minute the grinning

boy came back, and he was quite respectful, and said--‘The Editor says,

please will you step up?’

We stepped up. There were a lot of stairs and passages, and a queer sort

of humming, hammering sound and a very funny smell. The boy was now very

polite, and said it was the ink we smelt, and the noise was the printing

machines.

After going through a lot of cold passages we came to a door; the boy

opened it, and let us go in. There was a large room, with a big, soft,

blue-and-red carpet, and a roaring fire, though it was only October; and

a large table with drawers, and littered with papers, just like the one

in Father’s study. A gentleman was sitting at one side of the table; he

had a light moustache and light eyes, and he looked very young to be an

editor--not nearly so old as Father. He looked very tired and sleepy,

as if he had got up very early in the morning; but he was kind, and we

liked him. Oswald thought he looked clever. Oswald is considered a judge

of faces.

‘Well,’ said he, ‘so you are Mrs Leslie’s friends?’

‘I think so,’ said Noel; ‘at least she gave us each a shilling, and she

wished us “good hunting!”’

‘Good hunting, eh? Well, what about this poetry of yours? Which is the

poet?’

I can’t think how he could have asked! Oswald is said to be a very

manly-looking boy for his age. However, I thought it would look duffing

to be offended, so I said--

‘This is my brother Noel. He is the poet.’ Noel had turned quite pale.

He is disgustingly like a girl in some ways. The Editor told us to sit

down, and he took the poems from Noel, and began to read them. Noel got

paler and paler; I really thought he was going to faint, like he did

when I held his hand under the cold-water tap, after I had accidentally

cut him with my chisel. When the Editor had read the first poem--it was

the one about the beetle--he got up and stood with his back to us. It

was not manners; but Noel thinks he did it ‘to conceal his emotion,’ as

they do in books. He read all the poems, and then he said--

‘I like your poetry very much, young man. I’ll give you--let me see; how

much shall I give you for it?’

‘As much as ever you can,’ said Noel. ‘You see I want a good deal of

money to restore the fallen fortunes of the house of Bastable.’

The gentleman put on some eye-glasses and looked hard at us. Then he sat

down.

‘That’s a good idea,’ said he. ‘Tell me how you came to think of it.

And, I say, have you had any tea? They’ve just sent out for mine.’

He rang a tingly bell, and the boy brought in a tray with a teapot and

a thick cup and saucer and things, and he had to fetch another tray for

us, when he was told to; and we had tea with the Editor of the Daily

Recorder. I suppose it was a very proud moment for Noel, though I

did not think of that till afterwards. The Editor asked us a lot of

questions, and we told him a good deal, though of course I did not tell

a stranger all our reasons for thinking that the family fortunes wanted

restoring. We stayed about half an hour, and when we were going away he

said again--

‘I shall print all your poems, my poet; and now what do you think

they’re worth?’

‘I don’t know,’ Noel said. ‘You see I didn’t write them to sell.’

‘Why did you write them then?’ he asked.

Noel said he didn’t know; he supposed because he wanted to.

‘Art for Art’s sake, eh?’ said the Editor, and he seemed quite

delighted, as though Noel had said something clever.

‘Well, would a guinea meet your views?’ he asked.

I have read of people being at a loss for words, and dumb with emotion,

and I’ve read of people being turned to stone with astonishment, or

joy, or something, but I never knew how silly it looked till I saw Noel

standing staring at the Editor with his mouth open. He went red and he

went white, and then he got crimson, as if you were rubbing more and

more crimson lake on a palette. But he didn’t say a word, so Oswald had

to say--

‘I should jolly well think so.’

So the Editor gave Noel a sovereign and a shilling, and he shook hands

with us both, but he thumped Noel on the back and said--

‘Buck up, old man! It’s your first guinea, but it won’t be your last.

Now go along home, and in about ten years you can bring me some more

poetry. Not before--see? I’m just taking this poetry of yours because I

like it very much; but we don’t put poetry in this paper at all. I shall

have to put it in another paper I know of.’

‘What _do_ you put in your paper?’ I asked, for Father always takes the

Daily Chronicle, and I didn’t know what the Recorder was like. We chose

it because it has such a glorious office, and a clock outside lighted

up.

‘Oh, news,’ said he, ‘and dull articles, and things about Celebrities.

If you know any Celebrities, now?’

Noel asked him what Celebrities were.

‘Oh, the Queen and the Princes, and people with titles, and people who

write, or sing, or act--or do something clever or wicked.’

‘I don’t know anybody wicked,’ said Oswald, wishing he had known Dick

Turpin, or Claude Duval, so as to be able to tell the Editor things

about them. ‘But I know some one with a title--Lord Tottenham.’

‘The mad old Protectionist, eh? How did you come to know him?’

‘We don’t know him to speak to. But he goes over the Heath every day at

three, and he strides along like a giant--with a black cloak like Lord

Tennyson’s flying behind him, and he talks to himself like one o’clock.’

‘What does he say?’ The Editor had sat down again, and he was fiddling

with a blue pencil.

‘We only heard him once, close enough to understand, and then he said,

“The curse of the country, sir--ruin and desolation!” And then he went

striding along again, hitting at the furze-bushes as if they were the

heads of his enemies.’

‘Excellent descriptive touch,’ said the Editor. ‘Well, go on.’

‘That’s all I know about him, except that he stops in the middle of the

Heath every day, and he looks all round to see if there’s any one about,

and if there isn’t, he takes his collar off.’

The Editor interrupted--which is considered rude--and said--

‘You’re not romancing?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ said Oswald. ‘Drawing the long bow, I mean,’ said

the Editor.

Oswald drew himself up, and said he wasn’t a liar.

The Editor only laughed, and said romancing and lying were not at all

the same; only it was important to know what you were playing at. So

Oswald accepted his apology, and went on.

‘We were hiding among the furze-bushes one day, and we saw him do it. He

took off his collar, and he put on a clean one, and he threw the other

among the furze-bushes. We picked it up afterwards, and it was a beastly

paper one!’

‘Thank you,’ said the Editor, and he got up and put his hand in his

pocket. ‘That’s well worth five shillings, and there they are. Would you

like to see round the printing offices before you go home?’

I pocketed my five bob, and thanked him, and I said we should like it

very much. He called another gentleman and said something we couldn’t

hear. Then he said good-bye again; and all this time Noel hadn’t said a

word. But now he said, ‘I’ve made a poem about you. It is called “Lines

to a Noble Editor.” Shall I write it down?’

The Editor gave him the blue pencil, and he sat down at the Editor’s

table and wrote. It was this, he told me afterwards as well as he could

remember--

May Life’s choicest blessings be your lot

I think you ought to be very blest

For you are going to print my poems--

And you may have this one as well as the rest.

‘Thank you,’ said the Editor. ‘I don’t think I ever had a poem addressed

to me before. I shall treasure it, I assure you.’

Then the other gentleman said something about Maecenas, and we went off

to see the printing office with at least one pound seven in our pockets.

It _was_ good hunting, and no mistake!

But he never put Noel’s poetry in the Daily Recorder. It was quite a

long time afterwards we saw a sort of story thing in a magazine, on the

station bookstall, and that kind, sleepy-looking Editor had written it,

I suppose. It was not at all amusing. It said a lot about Noel and me,

describing us all wrong, and saying how we had tea with the Editor;

and all Noel’s poems were in the story thing. I think myself the Editor

seemed to make game of them, but Noel was quite pleased to see them

printed--so that’s all right. It wasn’t my poetry anyhow, I am glad to

say.

CHAPTER 6. NOEL’S PRINCESS

She happened quite accidentally. We were not looking for a Princess at

all just then; but Noel had said he was going to find a Princess all by

himself; and marry her--and he really did. Which was rather odd, because

when people say things are going to befall, very often they don’t. It

was different, of course, with the prophets of old.

We did not get any treasure by it, except twelve chocolate drops; but we

might have done, and it was an adventure, anyhow.

Greenwich Park is a jolly good place to play in, especially the parts

that aren’t near Greenwich. The parts near the Heath are first-rate.

I often wish the Park was nearer our house; but I suppose a Park is a

difficult thing to move.

Sometimes we get Eliza to put lunch in a basket, and we go up to the

Park. She likes that--it saves cooking dinner for us; and sometimes she

says of her own accord, ‘I’ve made some pasties for you, and you might

as well go into the Park as not. It’s a lovely day.’

She always tells us to rinse out the cup at the drinking-fountain, and

the girls do; but I always put my head under the tap and drink. Then you

are an intrepid hunter at a mountain stream--and besides, you’re sure

it’s clean. Dicky does the same, and so does H. O. But Noel always

drinks out of the cup. He says it is a golden goblet wrought by

enchanted gnomes.

The day the Princess happened was a fine, hot day, last October, and we

were quite tired with the walk up to the Park.

We always go in by the little gate at the top of Croom’s Hill. It is

the postern gate that things always happen at in stories. It was dusty

walking, but when we got in the Park it was ripping, so we rested a bit,

and lay on our backs, and looked up at the trees, and wished we could

play monkeys. I have done it before now, but the Park-keeper makes a row

if he catches you.

When we’d rested a little, Alice said--

‘It was a long way to the enchanted wood, but it is very nice now we are

there. I wonder what we shall find in it?’

‘We shall find deer,’ said Dicky, ‘if we go to look; but they go on the

other side of the Park because of the people with buns.’

Saying buns made us think of lunch, so we had it; and when we had done

we scratched a hole under a tree and buried the papers, because we know

it spoils pretty places to leave beastly, greasy papers lying about. I

remember Mother teaching me and Dora that, when we were quite little.

I wish everybody’s parents would teach them this useful lesson, and the

same about orange peel.

When we’d eaten everything there was, Alice whispered--

‘I see the white witch bear yonder among the trees! Let’s track it and

slay it in its lair.’

‘I am the bear,’ said Noel; so he crept away, and we followed him among

the trees. Often the witch bear was out of sight, and then you didn’t

know where it would jump out from; but sometimes we saw it, and just

followed.

‘When we catch it there’ll be a great fight,’ said Oswald; ‘and I shall

be Count Folko of Mont Faucon.’

‘I’ll be Gabrielle,’ said Dora. She is the only one of us who likes

doing girl’s parts.

‘I’ll be Sintram,’ said Alice; ‘and H. O. can be the Little Master.’

‘What about Dicky?’

‘Oh, I can be the Pilgrim with the bones.’

‘Hist!’ whispered Alice. ‘See his white fairy fur gleaming amid yonder

covert!’

And I saw a bit of white too. It was Noel’s collar, and it had come

undone at the back.

We hunted the bear in and out of the trees, and then we lost him

altogether; and suddenly we found the wall of the Park--in a place where

I’m sure there wasn’t a wall before. Noel wasn’t anywhere about, and

there was a door in the wall. And it was open; so we went through.

‘The bear has hidden himself in these mountain fastnesses,’ Oswald said.

‘I will draw my good sword and after him.’

So I drew the umbrella, which Dora always will bring in case it rains,

because Noel gets a cold on the chest at the least thing--and we went

on.

The other side of the wall it was a stable yard, all cobble-stones.

There was nobody about--but we could hear a man rubbing down a horse

and hissing in the stable; so we crept very quietly past, and Alice

whispered--

‘’Tis the lair of the Monster Serpent; I hear his deadly hiss! Beware!

Courage and despatch!’

We went over the stones on tiptoe, and we found another wall with

another door in it on the other side. We went through that too, on

tiptoe. It really was an adventure. And there we were in a shrubbery,

and we saw something white through the trees. Dora said it was the white

bear. That is so like Dora. She always begins to take part in a play

just when the rest of us are getting tired of it. I don’t mean this

unkindly, because I am very fond of Dora. I cannot forget how kind she

was when I had bronchitis; and ingratitude is a dreadful vice. But it is

quite true.

‘It is not a bear,’ said Oswald; and we all went on, still on tiptoe,

round a twisty path and on to a lawn, and there was Noel. His collar had

come undone, as I said, and he had an inky mark on his face that he made

just before we left the house, and he wouldn’t let Dora wash it off,

and one of his bootlaces was coming down. He was standing looking at a

little girl; she was the funniest little girl you ever saw.

She was like a china doll--the sixpenny kind; she had a white face, and

long yellow hair, done up very tight in two pigtails; her forehead was

very big and lumpy, and her cheeks came high up, like little shelves

under her eyes. Her eyes were small and blue. She had on a funny black

frock, with curly braid on it, and button boots that went almost up to

her knees. Her legs were very thin. She was sitting in a hammock chair

nursing a blue kitten--not a sky-blue one, of course, but the colour

of a new slate pencil. As we came up we heard her say to Noel--‘Who are

you?’

Noel had forgotten about the bear, and he was taking his favourite part,

so he said--‘I’m Prince Camaralzaman.’

The funny little girl looked pleased--

‘I thought at first you were a common boy,’ she said. Then she saw the

rest of us and said--

‘Are you all Princesses and Princes too?’

Of course we said ‘Yes,’ and she said--

‘I am a Princess also.’ She said it very well too, exactly as if it were

true. We were very glad, because it is so seldom you meet any children

who can begin to play right off without having everything explained to

them. And even then they will say they are going to ‘pretend to be’ a

lion, or a witch, or a king. Now this little girl just said ‘I _am_ a

Princess.’ Then she looked at Oswald and said, ‘I fancy I’ve seen you at

Baden.’

Of course Oswald said, ‘Very likely.’

The little girl had a funny voice, and all her words were quite plain,

each word by itself; she didn’t talk at all like we do.

H. O. asked her what the cat’s name was, and she said ‘Katinka.’ Then

Dicky said--

‘Let’s get away from the windows; if you play near windows some one

inside generally knocks at them and says “Don’t”.’

The Princess put down the cat very carefully and said--

‘I am forbidden to walk off the grass.’

‘That’s a pity,’ said Dora.

‘But I will if you like,’ said the Princess.

‘You mustn’t do things you are forbidden to do,’ Dora said; but Dicky

showed us that there was some more grass beyond the shrubs with only a

gravel path between. So I lifted the Princess over the gravel, so that

she should be able to say she hadn’t walked off the grass. When we got

to the other grass we all sat down, and the Princess asked us if

we liked ‘dragees’ (I know that’s how you spell it, for I asked

Albert-next-door’s uncle).

We said we thought not, but she pulled a real silver box out of her

pocket and showed us; they were just flat, round chocolates. We had two

each. Then we asked her her name, and she began, and when she began she

went on, and on, and on, till I thought she was never going to stop. H.

O. said she had fifty names, but Dicky is very good at figures, and he

says there were only eighteen. The first were Pauline, Alexandra, Alice,

and Mary was one, and Victoria, for we all heard that, and it ended

up with Hildegarde Cunigonde something or other, Princess of something

else.

When she’d done, H. O. said, ‘That’s jolly good! Say it again!’ and she

did, but even then we couldn’t remember it. We told her our names, but

she thought they were too short, so when it was Noel’s turn he said he

was Prince Noel Camaralzaman Ivan Constantine Charlemagne James John

Edward Biggs Maximilian Bastable Prince of Lewisham, but when she asked

him to say it again of course he could only get the first two names

right, because he’d made it up as he went on.

So the Princess said, ‘You are quite old enough to know your own name.’

She was very grave and serious.

She told us that she was the fifth cousin of Queen Victoria. We asked

who the other cousins were, but she did not seem to understand. She went

on and said she was seven times removed. She couldn’t tell us what that

meant either, but Oswald thinks it means that the Queen’s cousins are

so fond of her that they will keep coming bothering, so the Queen’s

servants have orders to remove them. This little girl must have been

very fond of the Queen to try so often to see her, and to have been

seven times removed. We could see that it is considered something to

be proud of; but we thought it was hard on the Queen that her cousins

wouldn’t let her alone.

Presently the little girl asked us where our maids and governesses were.

We told her we hadn’t any just now. And she said--

‘How pleasant! And did you come here alone?’

‘Yes,’ said Dora; ‘we came across the Heath.’

‘You are very fortunate,’ said the little girl. She sat very upright on

the grass, with her fat little hands in her lap. ‘I should like to go on

the Heath. There are donkeys there, with white saddle covers. I should

like to ride them, but my governess will not permit.’

‘I’m glad we haven’t a governess,’ H. O. said. ‘We ride the donkeys

whenever we have any pennies, and once I gave the man another penny to

make it gallop.’

‘You are indeed fortunate!’ said the Princess again, and when she looked

sad the shelves on her cheeks showed more than ever. You could have laid

a sixpence on them quite safely if you had had one.

‘Never mind,’ said Noel; ‘I’ve got a lot of money. Come out and have a

ride now.’ But the little girl shook her head and said she was afraid it

would not be correct.

Dora said she was quite right; then all of a sudden came one of those

uncomfortable times when nobody can think of anything to say, so we sat

and looked at each other. But at last Alice said we ought to be going.

‘Do not go yet,’ the little girl said. ‘At what time did they order your

carriage?’

‘Our carriage is a fairy one, drawn by griffins, and it comes when we

wish for it,’ said Noel.

The little girl looked at him very queerly, and said, ‘That is out of a

picture-book.’

Then Noel said he thought it was about time he was married if we were to

be home in time for tea. The little girl was rather stupid over it,

but she did what we told her, and we married them with Dora’s

pocket-handkerchief for a veil, and the ring off the back of one of the

buttons on H. O.’s blouse just went on her little finger.

Then we showed her how to play cross-touch, and puss in the corner,

and tag. It was funny, she didn’t know any games but battledore and

shuttlecock and les graces. But she really began to laugh at last and

not to look quite so like a doll.

She was Puss and was running after Dicky when suddenly she stopped short

and looked as if she was going to cry. And we looked too, and there were

two prim ladies with little mouths and tight hair. One of them said in

quite an awful voice, ‘Pauline, who are these children?’ and her voice

was gruff; with very curly R’s.

The little girl said we were Princes and Princesses--which was silly, to

a grown-up person that is not a great friend of yours.

The gruff lady gave a short, horrid laugh, like a husky bark, and said--

‘Princes, indeed! They’re only common children!’

Dora turned very red and began to speak, but the little girl cried out

‘Common children! Oh, I am so glad! When I am grown up I’ll always play

with common children.’

And she ran at us, and began to kiss us one by one, beginning

with Alice; she had got to H. O. when the horrid lady said--‘Your

Highness--go indoors at once!’

The little girl answered, ‘I won’t!’

Then the prim lady said--‘Wilson, carry her Highness indoors.’

And the little girl was carried away screaming, and kicking with her

little thin legs and her buttoned boots, and between her screams she

shrieked:

‘Common children! I am glad, glad, glad! Common children! Common

children!’

The nasty lady then remarked--‘Go at once, or I will send for the

police!’

So we went. H. O. made a face at her and so did Alice, but Oswald took

off his cap and said he was sorry if she was annoyed about anything;

for Oswald has always been taught to be polite to ladies, however nasty.

Dicky took his off, too, when he saw me do it; he says he did it first,

but that is a mistake. If I were really a common boy I should say it was

a lie.

Then we all came away, and when we got outside Dora said, ‘So she was

really a Princess. Fancy a Princess living _there_!’

‘Even Princesses have to live somewhere,’ said Dicky.

‘And I thought it was play. And it was real. I wish I’d known! I should

have liked to ask her lots of things,’ said Alice.

H. O. said he would have liked to ask her what she had for dinner and

whether she had a crown.

I felt, myself, we had lost a chance of finding out a great deal about

kings and queens. I might have known such a stupid-looking little girl

would never have been able to pretend, as well as that.

So we all went home across the Heath, and made dripping toast for tea.

When we were eating it Noel said, ‘I wish I could give _her_ some! It is

very good.’

He sighed as he said it, and his mouth was very full, so we knew he was

thinking of his Princess. He says now that she was as beautiful as the

day, but we remember her quite well, and she was nothing of the kind.

CHAPTER 7. BEING BANDITS

Noel was quite tiresome for ever so long after we found the Princess. He

would keep on wanting to go to the Park when the rest of us didn’t, and

though we went several times to please him, we never found that door

open again, and all of us except him knew from the first that it would

be no go.

So now we thought it was time to do something to rouse him from the

stupor of despair, which is always done to heroes when anything baffling

has occurred. Besides, we were getting very short of money again--the

fortunes of your house cannot be restored (not so that they will last,

that is), even by the one pound eight we got when we had the ‘good

hunting.’ We spent a good deal of that on presents for Father’s

birthday. We got him a paper-weight, like a glass bun, with a picture

of Lewisham Church at the bottom; and a blotting-pad, and a box of

preserved fruits, and an ivory penholder with a view of Greenwich

Park in the little hole where you look through at the top. He was most

awfully pleased and surprised, and when he heard how Noel and Oswald had

earned the money to buy the things he was more surprised still. Nearly

all the rest of our money went to get fireworks for the Fifth of

November. We got six Catherine wheels and four rockets; two hand-lights,

one red and one green; a sixpenny maroon; two Roman-candles--they cost

a shilling; some Italian streamers, a fairy fountain, and a tourbillon

that cost eighteen-pence and was very nearly worth it.

But I think crackers and squibs are a mistake. It’s true you get a lot

of them for the money, and they are not bad fun for the first two or

three dozen, but you get jolly sick of them before you’ve let off your

sixpenn’orth. And the only amusing way is not allowed: it is putting

them in the fire.

It always seems a long time till the evening when you have got fireworks

in the house, and I think as it was a rather foggy day we should have

decided to let them off directly after breakfast, only Father had said

he would help us to let them off at eight o’clock after he had had his

dinner, and you ought never to disappoint your father if you can help

it.

You see we had three good reasons for trying H. O.’s idea of restoring

the fallen fortunes of our house by becoming bandits on the Fifth of

November. We had a fourth reason as well, and that was the best reason

of the lot. You remember Dora thought it would be wrong to be bandits.

And the Fifth of November came while Dora was away at Stroud staying

with her godmother. Stroud is in Gloucestershire. We were determined to

do it while she was out of the way, because we did not think it wrong,

and besides we meant to do it anyhow.

We held a Council, of course, and laid our plans very carefully. We let

H. O. be Captain, because it was his idea. Oswald was Lieutenant. Oswald

was quite fair, because he let H. O. call himself Captain; but Oswald is

the eldest next to Dora, after all.

Our plan was this. We were all to go up on to the Heath. Our house is in

the Lewisham Road, but it’s quite close to the Heath if you cut up the

short way opposite the confectioner’s, past the nursery gardens and

the cottage hospital, and turn to the left again and afterwards to the

right. You come out then at the top of the hill, where the big guns are

with the iron fence round them, and where the bands play on Thursday

evenings in the summer.

We were to lurk in ambush there, and waylay an unwary traveller. We were

to call upon him to surrender his arms, and then bring him home and put

him in the deepest dungeon below the castle moat; then we were to load

him with chains and send to his friends for ransom.

You may think we had no chains, but you are wrong, because we used

to keep two other dogs once, besides Pincher, before the fall of the

fortunes of the ancient House of Bastable. And they were quite big dogs.

It was latish in the afternoon before we started. We thought we could

lurk better if it was nearly dark. It was rather foggy, and we waited

a good while beside the railings, but all the belated travellers were

either grown up or else they were Board School children. We weren’t

going to get into a row with grown-up people--especially strangers--and

no true bandit would ever stoop to ask a ransom from the relations of

the poor and needy. So we thought it better to wait.

As I said, it was Guy Fawkes Day, and if it had not been we should never

have been able to be bandits at all, for the unwary traveller we did

catch had been forbidden to go out because he had a cold in his head.

But he would run out to follow a guy, without even putting on a coat or

a comforter, and it was a very damp, foggy afternoon and nearly dark, so

you see it was his own fault entirely, and served him jolly well right.

We saw him coming over the Heath just as we were deciding to go home

to tea. He had followed that guy right across to the village (we call

Blackheath the village; I don’t know why), and he was coming back

dragging his feet and sniffing.

‘Hist, an unwary traveller approaches!’ whispered Oswald.

‘Muffle your horses’ heads and see to the priming of your pistols,’

muttered Alice. She always will play boys’ parts, and she makes Ellis

cut her hair short on purpose. Ellis is a very obliging hairdresser.

‘Steal softly upon him,’ said Noel; ‘for lo! ‘tis dusk, and no human

eyes can mark our deeds.’

So we ran out and surrounded the unwary traveller. It turned out to be

Albert-next-door, and he was very frightened indeed until he saw who we

were.

‘Surrender!’ hissed Oswald, in a desperate-sounding voice, as he caught

the arm of the Unwary. And Albert-next-door said, ‘All right! I’m

surrendering as hard as I can. You needn’t pull my arm off.’

We explained to him that resistance was useless, and I think he saw that

from the first. We held him tight by both arms, and we marched him home

down the hill in a hollow square of five.

He wanted to tell us about the guy, but we made him see that it was not

proper for prisoners to talk to the guard, especially about guys that

the prisoner had been told not to go after because of his cold.

When we got to where we live he said, ‘All right, I don’t want to tell

you. You’ll wish I had afterwards. You never saw such a guy.’

‘I can see _you_!’ said H. O. It was very rude, and Oswald told him so

at once, because it is his duty as an elder brother. But H. O. is very

young and does not know better yet, and besides it wasn’t bad for H. O.

Albert-next-door said, ‘You haven’t any manners, and I want to go in to

my tea. Let go of me!’

But Alice told him, quite kindly, that he was not going in to his tea,

but coming with us.

‘I’m not,’ said Albert-next-door; ‘I’m going home. Leave go! I’ve got

a bad cold. You’re making it worse.’ Then he tried to cough, which was

very silly, because we’d seen him in the morning, and he’d told us where

the cold was that he wasn’t to go out with. When he had tried to cough,

he said, ‘Leave go of me! You see my cold’s getting worse.’

‘You should have thought of that before,’ said Dicky; ‘you’re coming in

with us.’

‘Don’t be a silly,’ said Noel; ‘you know we told you at the very

beginning that resistance was useless. There is no disgrace in yielding.

We are five to your one.’

By this time Eliza had opened the door, and we thought it best to take

him in without any more parlaying. To parley with a prisoner is not done

by bandits.

Directly we got him safe into the nursery, H. O. began to jump about and

say, ‘Now you’re a prisoner really and truly!’

And Albert-next-door began to cry. He always does. I wonder he didn’t

begin long before--but Alice fetched him one of the dried fruits we

gave Father for his birthday. It was a green walnut. I have noticed

the walnuts and the plums always get left till the last in the box; the

apricots go first, and then the figs and pears; and the cherries, if

there are any.

So he ate it and shut up. Then we explained his position to him, so that

there should be no mistake, and he couldn’t say afterwards that he had

not understood.

‘There will be no violence,’ said Oswald--he was now Captain of the

Bandits, because we all know H. O. likes to be Chaplain when we

play prisoners--‘no violence. But you will be confined in a dark,

subterranean dungeon where toads and snakes crawl, and but little of the

light of day filters through the heavily mullioned windows. You will be

loaded with chains. Now don’t begin again, Baby, there’s nothing to

cry about; straw will be your pallet; beside you the gaoler will set a

ewer--a ewer is only a jug, stupid; it won’t eat you--a ewer with water;

and a mouldering crust will be your food.’

But Albert-next-door never enters into the spirit of a thing. He mumbled

something about tea-time.

Now Oswald, though stern, is always just, and besides we were all rather

hungry, and tea was ready. So we had it at once, Albert-next-door and

all--and we gave him what was left of the four-pound jar of apricot jam

we got with the money Noel got for his poetry. And we saved our crusts

for the prisoner.

Albert-next-door was very tiresome. Nobody could have had a nicer prison

than he had. We fenced him into a corner with the old wire nursery

fender and all the chairs, instead of putting him in the coal-cellar

as we had first intended. And when he said the dog-chains were cold the

girls were kind enough to warm his fetters thoroughly at the fire before

we put them on him.

We got the straw cases of some bottles of wine someone sent Father

one Christmas--it is some years ago, but the cases are quite good. We

unpacked them very carefully and pulled them to pieces and scattered

the straw about. It made a lovely straw pallet, and took ever so long to

make--but Albert-next-door has yet to learn what gratitude really is.

We got the bread trencher for the wooden platter where the prisoner’s

crusts were put--they were not mouldy, but we could not wait till they

got so, and for the ewer we got the toilet jug out of the spare-room

where nobody ever sleeps. And even then Albert-next-door couldn’t be

happy like the rest of us. He howled and cried and tried to get out, and

he knocked the ewer over and stamped on the mouldering crusts. Luckily

there was no water in the ewer because we had forgotten it, only dust

and spiders. So we tied him up with the clothes-line from the back

kitchen, and we had to hurry up, which was a pity for him. We might have

had him rescued by a devoted page if he hadn’t been so tiresome. In fact

Noel was actually dressing up for the page when Albert-next-door kicked

over the prison ewer.

We got a sheet of paper out of an old exercise-book, and we made H. O.

prick his own thumb, because he is our little brother and it is our duty

to teach him to be brave. We none of us mind pricking ourselves; we’ve

done it heaps of times. H. O. didn’t like it, but he agreed to do it,

and I helped him a little because he was so slow, and when he saw the

red bead of blood getting fatter and bigger as I squeezed his thumb he

was very pleased, just as I had told him he would be.

This is what we wrote with H. O.’s blood, only the blood gave out when

we got to ‘Restored’, and we had to write the rest with crimson lake,

which is not the same colour, though I always use it, myself, for

painting wounds.

While Oswald was writing it he heard Alice whispering to the prisoner

that it would soon be over, and it was only play. The prisoner left off

howling, so I pretended not to hear what she said. A Bandit Captain has

to overlook things sometimes. This was the letter--

‘Albert Morrison is held a prisoner by Bandits.

On payment of three thousand pounds he will be

restored to his sorrowing relatives, and all

will be forgotten and forgiven.’

I was not sure about the last part, but Dicky was certain he had seen it

in the paper, so I suppose it must have been all right.

We let H. O. take the letter; it was only fair, as it was his blood it

was written with, and told him to leave it next door for Mrs Morrison.

H. O. came back quite quickly, and Albert-next-door’s uncle came with

him.

‘What is all this, Albert?’ he cried. ‘Alas, alas, my nephew! Do I find

you the prisoner of a desperate band of brigands?’

‘Bandits,’ said H. O; ‘you know it says bandits.’

‘I beg your pardon, gentlemen,’ said Albert-next-door’s uncle, ‘bandits

it is, of course. This, Albert, is the direct result of the pursuit of

the guy on an occasion when your doting mother had expressly warned you

to forgo the pleasures of the chase.’

Albert said it wasn’t his fault, and he hadn’t wanted to play.

‘So ho!’ said his uncle, ‘impenitent too! Where’s the dungeon?’

We explained the dungeon, and showed him the straw pallet and the ewer

and the mouldering crusts and other things.

‘Very pretty and complete,’ he said. ‘Albert, you are more highly

privileged than ever I was. No one ever made me a nice dungeon when I

was your age. I think I had better leave you where you are.’

Albert began to cry again and said he was sorry, and he would be a good

boy.

‘And on this old familiar basis you expect me to ransom you, do you?

Honestly, my nephew, I doubt whether you are worth it. Besides, the sum

mentioned in this document strikes me as excessive: Albert really is

_not_ worth three thousand pounds. Also by a strange and unfortunate

chance I haven’t the money about me. Couldn’t you take less?’

We said perhaps we could.

‘Say eightpence,’ suggested Albert-next-door’s uncle, ‘which is all the

small change I happen to have on my person.’

‘Thank you very much,’ said Alice as he held it out; ‘but are you sure

you can spare it? Because really it was only play.’

‘Quite sure. Now, Albert, the game is over. You had better run home to

your mother and tell her how much you’ve enjoyed yourself.’

When Albert-next-door had gone his uncle sat in the Guy Fawkes armchair

and took Alice on his knee, and we sat round the fire waiting till it

would be time to let off our fireworks. We roasted the chestnuts he

sent Dicky out for, and he told us stories till it was nearly seven. His

stories are first-rate--he does all the parts in different voices. At

last he said--

‘Look here, young-uns. I like to see you play and enjoy yourselves, and

I don’t think it hurts Albert to enjoy himself too.’

‘I don’t think he did much,’ said H. O. But I knew what

Albert-next-door’s uncle meant because I am much older than H. O. He

went on--

‘But what about Albert’s mother? Didn’t you think how anxious she would

be at his not coming home? As it happens I saw him come in with you, so

we knew it was all right. But if I hadn’t, eh?’

He only talks like that when he is very serious, or even angry. Other

times he talks like people in books--to us, I mean.

We none of us said anything. But I was thinking. Then Alice spoke.

Girls seem not to mind saying things that we don’t say. She put her arms

round Albert-next-door’s uncle’s neck and said--

‘We’re very, very sorry. We didn’t think about his mother. You see we

try very hard not to think about other people’s mothers because--’

Just then we heard Father’s key in the door and Albert-next-door’s uncle

kissed Alice and put her down, and we all went down to meet Father. As

we went I thought I heard Albert-next-door’s uncle say something that

sounded like ‘Poor little beggars!’

He couldn’t have meant us, when we’d been having such a jolly time, and

chestnuts, and fireworks to look forward to after dinner and everything!

CHAPTER 8. BEING EDITORS

It was Albert’s uncle who thought of our trying a newspaper. He said he

thought we should not find the bandit business a paying industry, as a

permanency, and that journalism might be.

We had sold Noel’s poetry and that piece of information about Lord

Tottenham to the good editor, so we thought it would not be a bad idea

to have a newspaper of our own. We saw plainly that editors must be very

rich and powerful, because of the grand office and the man in the glass

case, like a museum, and the soft carpets and big writing-table. Besides

our having seen a whole handful of money that the editor pulled out

quite carelessly from his trousers pocket when he gave me my five bob.

Dora wanted to be editor and so did Oswald, but he gave way to her

because she is a girl, and afterwards he knew that it is true what it

says in the copy-books about Virtue being its own Reward. Because you’ve

no idea what a bother it is. Everybody wanted to put in everything just

as they liked, no matter how much room there was on the page. It was

simply awful! Dora put up with it as long as she could and then she said

if she wasn’t let alone she wouldn’t go on being editor; they could be

the paper’s editors themselves, so there.

Then Oswald said, like a good brother: ‘I will help you if you like,

Dora,’ and she said, ‘You’re more trouble than all the rest of them!

Come and be editor and see how you like it. I give it up to you.’

But she didn’t, and we did it together. We let Albert-next-door be

sub-editor, because he had hurt his foot with a nail in his boot that

gathered.

When it was done Albert-next-door’s uncle had it copied for us in

typewriting, and we sent copies to all our friends, and then of course

there was no one left that we could ask to buy it. We did not think of

that until too late. We called the paper the Lewisham Recorder; Lewisham

because we live there, and Recorder in memory of the good editor. I

could write a better paper on my head, but an editor is not allowed to

write all the paper. It is very hard, but he is not. You just have to

fill up with what you can get from other writers. If I ever have time I

will write a paper all by myself. It won’t be patchy. We had no time to

make it an illustrated paper, but I drew the ship going down with all

hands for the first copy. But the typewriter can’t draw ships, so it was

left out in the other copies. The time the first paper took to write out

no one would believe! This was the Newspaper:

THE LEWISHAM RECORDER

EDITORS: DORA AND OSWALD BASTABLE

------------ EDITORIAL NOTE

Every paper is written for some reason. Ours is because we want to sell

it and get money. If what we have written brings happiness to any sad

heart we shall not have laboured in vain. But we want the money too.

Many papers are content with the sad heart and the happiness, but we are

not like that, and it is best not to be deceitful. EDITORS.

There will be two serial stories; One by Dicky and one by all of us. In

a serial story you only put in one chapter at a time. But we shall put

all our serial story at once, if Dora has time to copy it. Dicky’s will

come later on.

SERIAL STORY

BY US ALL

CHAPTER I--by Dora

The sun was setting behind a romantic-looking tower when two strangers

might have been observed descending the crest of the hill. The eldest,

a man in the prime of life; the other a handsome youth who reminded

everybody of Quentin Durward. They approached the Castle, in which the

fair Lady Alicia awaited her deliverers. She leaned from the castellated

window and waved her lily hand as they approached. They returned her

signal, and retired to seek rest and refreshment at a neighbouring

hostelry.

------------ CHAPTER II--by Alice

The Princess was very uncomfortable in the tower, because her fairy

godmother had told her all sorts of horrid things would happen if she

didn’t catch a mouse every day, and she had caught so many mice that now

there were hardly any left to catch. So she sent her carrier pigeon to

ask the noble Strangers if they could send her a few mice--because she

would be of age in a few days and then it wouldn’t matter. So the fairy

godmother--- (I’m very sorry, but there’s no room to make the chapters

any longer.-ED.)

------------ CHAPTER III--by the Sub-Editor

(I can’t--I’d much rather not--I don’t know how.)

------------ CHAPTER IV--by Dicky

I must now retrace my steps and tell you something about our hero. You

must know he had been to an awfully jolly school, where they had turkey

and goose every day for dinner, and never any mutton, and as many helps

of pudding as a fellow cared to send up his plate for--so of course they

had all grown up very strong, and before he left school he challenged

the Head to have it out man to man, and he gave it him, I tell you. That

was the education that made him able to fight Red Indians, and to be the

stranger who might have been observed in the first chapter.

------------ CHAPTER V--by Noel

I think it’s time something happened in this story. So then the dragon

he came out, blowing fire out of his nose, and he said--

‘Come on, you valiant man and true, I’d like to have a set-to along of

you!’

(That’s bad English.--ED. I don’t care; it’s what the dragon said. Who

told you dragons didn’t talk bad English?--Noel.)

So the hero, whose name was Noeloninuris, replied--

‘My blade is sharp, my axe is keen,

You’re not nearly as big

As a good many dragons I’ve seen.’

(Don’t put in so much poetry, Noel. It’s not fair, because none of the

others can do it.--ED.)

And then they went at it, and he beat the dragon, just as he did the

Head in Dicky’s part of the Story, and so he married the Princess, and

they lived--- (No they didn’t--not till the last chapter.--ED.)

------------ CHAPTER VI--by H. O.

I think it’s a very nice Story--but what about the mice? I don’t want to

say any more. Dora can have what’s left of my chapter.

------------ CHAPTER VII--by the Editors

And so when the dragon was dead there were lots of mice, because he used

to kill them for his tea but now they rapidly multiplied and ravaged the

country, so the fair lady Alicia, sometimes called the Princess, had

to say she would not marry any one unless they could rid the country of

this plague of mice. Then the Prince, whose real name didn’t begin

with N, but was Osrawalddo, waved his magic sword, and the dragon stood

before them, bowing gracefully. They made him promise to be good, and

then they forgave him; and when the wedding breakfast came, all the

bones were saved for him. And so they were married and lived happy ever

after.

(What became of the other stranger?--NOEL. The dragon ate him because he

asked too many questions.--EDITORS.)

This is the end of the story.

INSTRUCTIVE

It only takes four hours and a quarter now to get from London to

Manchester; but I should not think any one would if they could help it.

A DREADFUL WARNING. A wicked boy told me a very instructive thing about

ginger. They had opened one of the large jars, and he happened to take

out quite a lot, and he made it all right by dropping marbles in, till

there was as much ginger as before. But he told me that on the Sunday,

when it was coming near the part where there is only juice generally, I

had no idea what his feelings were. I don’t see what he could have said

when they asked him. I should be sorry to act like it.

------------ SCIENTIFIC

Experiments should always be made out of doors. And don’t use

benzoline.--DICKY. (That was when he burnt his eyebrows off.--ED.)

The earth is 2,400 miles round, and 800 through--at least I think so,

but perhaps it’s the other way.--DICKY. (You ought to have been sure

before you began.--ED.)

------------ SCIENTIFIC COLUMN

In this so-called Nineteenth Century Science is but too little

considered in the nurseries of the rich and proud. But we are not like

that.

It is not generally known that if you put bits of camphor in luke-warm

water it will move about. If you drop sweet oil in, the camphor will

dart away and then stop moving. But don’t drop any till you are tired

of it, because the camphor won’t any more afterwards. Much amusement and

instruction is lost by not knowing things like this.

If you put a sixpence under a shilling in a wine-glass, and blow hard

down the side of the glass, the sixpence will jump up and sit on the top

of the shilling. At least I can’t do it myself, but my cousin can. He is

in the Navy.

------------ ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

Noel. You are very poetical, but I am sorry to say it will not do.

Alice. Nothing will ever make your hair curl, so it’s no use. Some

people say it’s more important to tidy up as you go along. I don’t mean

you in particular, but every one.

H. O. We never said you were tubby, but the Editor does not know any

cure.

Noel. If there is any of the paper over when this newspaper is finished,

I will exchange it for your shut-up inkstand, or the knife that has the

useful thing in it for taking stones out of horses’ feet, but you can’t

have it without.

H. O. There are many ways how your steam engine might stop working.

You might ask Dicky. He knows one of them. I think it is the way yours

stopped.

Noel. If you think that by filling the garden with sand you can make

crabs build their nests there you are not at all sensible.

You have altered your poem about the battle of Waterloo so often, that

we cannot read it except where the Duke waves his sword and says some

thing we can’t read either. Why did you write it on blotting-paper with

purple chalk?--ED. (Because YOU KNOW WHO sneaked my pencil.--NOEL.)

------------ POETRY

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,

And the way he came down was awful, I’m told;

But it’s nothing to the way one of the Editors comes down on me,

If I crumble my bread-and-butter or spill my tea.

NOEL.

------------ CURIOUS FACTS

If you hold a guinea-pig up by his tail his eyes drop out.

You can’t do half the things yourself that children in books do, making

models or soon. I wonder why?--ALICE.

If you take a date’s stone out and put in an almond and eat them

together, it is prime. I found this out.--SUB-EDITOR.

If you put your wet hand into boiling lead it will not hurt you if you

draw it out quickly enough. I have never tried this.--DORA.

------------ THE PURRING CLASS

(Instructive Article)

If I ever keep a school everything shall be quite different. Nobody

shall learn anything they don’t want to. And sometimes instead of having

masters and mistresses we will have cats, and we will dress up in cat

skins and learn purring. ‘Now, my dears,’ the old cat will say, ‘one,

two, three all purr together,’ and we shall purr like anything.

She won’t teach us to mew, but we shall know how without teaching.

Children do know some things without being taught.--ALICE.

------------ POETRY

(Translated into French by Dora)

Quand j’etais jeune et j’etais fou

J’achetai un violon pour dix-huit sous

Et tous les airs que je jouai

Etait over the hills and far away.

Another piece of it

Mercie jolie vache qui fait

Bon lait pour mon dejeuner

Tous les matins tous les soirs

Mon pain je mange, ton lait je boire.

------------ RECREATIONS

It is a mistake to think that cats are playful. I often try to get a cat

to play with me, and she never seems to care about the game, no matter

how little it hurts.--H. O.

Making pots and pans with clay is fun, but do not tell the grown-ups. It

is better to surprise them; and then you must say at once how easily it

washes off--much easier than ink.--DICKY.

------------ SAM REDFERN, OR THE BUSH RANGER’S BURIAL

By Dicky

‘Well, Annie, I have bad news for you,’ said Mr Ridgway, as he entered

the comfortable dining-room of his cabin in the Bush. ‘Sam Redfern the

Bushranger is about this part of the Bush just now. I hope he will not

attack us with his gang.’

‘I hope not,’ responded Annie, a gentle maiden of some sixteen summers.

Just then came a knock at the door of the hut, and a gruff voice asked

them to open the door.

‘It is Sam Redfern the Bushranger, father,’ said the girl.

‘The same,’ responded the voice, and the next moment the hall door was

smashed in, and Sam Redfern sprang in, followed by his gang.

------------ CHAPTER II

Annie’s Father was at once overpowered, and Annie herself lay bound with

cords on the drawing-room sofa. Sam Redfern set a guard round the lonely

hut, and all human aid was despaired of. But you never know. Far away in

the Bush a different scene was being enacted.

‘Must be Injuns,’ said a tall man to himself as he pushed his way

through the brushwood. It was Jim Carlton, the celebrated detective. ‘I

know them,’ he added; ‘they are Apaches.’ just then ten Indians in full

war-paint appeared. Carlton raised his rifle and fired, and slinging

their scalps on his arm he hastened towards the humble log hut where

resided his affianced bride, Annie Ridgway, sometimes known as the

Flower of the Bush.

------------ CHAPTER III

The moon was low on the horizon, and Sam Redfern was seated at a

drinking bout with some of his boon companions.

They had rifled the cellars of the hut, and the rich wines flowed like

water in the golden goblets of Mr Ridgway.

But Annie had made friends with one of the gang, a noble, good-hearted

man who had joined Sam Redfern by mistake, and she had told him to go

and get the police as quickly as possible.

‘Ha! ha!’ cried Redfern, ‘now I am enjoying myself!’ He little knew that

his doom was near upon him.

Just then Annie gave a piercing scream, and Sam Redfern got up, seizing

his revolver. ‘Who are you?’ he cried, as a man entered.

‘I am Jim Carlton, the celebrated detective,’ said the new arrival.

Sam Redfern’s revolver dropped from his nerveless fingers, but the next

moment he had sprung upon the detective with the well-known activity of

the mountain sheep, and Annie shrieked, for she had grown to love the

rough Bushranger.

(To be continued at the end of the paper if there is room.)

------------ SCHOLASTIC

A new slate is horrid till it is washed in milk. I like the green spots

on them to draw patterns round. I know a good way to make a slate-pencil

squeak, but I won’t put it in because I don’t want to make it

common.--SUB-EDITOR.

Peppermint is a great help with arithmetic. The boy who was second in

the Oxford Local always did it. He gave me two. The examiner said to

him, ‘Are you eating peppermints?’ And he said, ‘No, Sir.’

He told me afterwards it was quite true, because he was only sucking

one. I’m glad I wasn’t asked. I should never have thought of that, and I

could have had to say ‘Yes.’--OSWALD.

------------ THE WRECK OF THE ‘MALABAR’

By Noel

(Author of ‘A Dream of Ancient Ancestors.’) He isn’t really--but he put

it in to make it seem more real.

Hark! what is that noise of rolling

Waves and thunder in the air?

‘Tis the death-knell of the sailors

And officers and passengers of the good ship Malabar.

It was a fair and lovely noon

When the good ship put out of port

And people said ‘ah little we think

How soon she will be the elements’ sport.’

She was indeed a lovely sight

Upon the billows with sails spread.

But the captain folded his gloomy arms,

Ah--if she had been a life-boat instead!

See the captain stern yet gloomy

Flings his son upon a rock,

Hoping that there his darling boy

May escape the wreck.

Alas in vain the loud winds roared

And nobody was saved.

That was the wreck of the Malabar,

Then let us toll for the brave.

NOEL.

------------ GARDENING NOTES

It is useless to plant cherry-stones in the hope of eating the fruit,

because they don’t!

Alice won’t lend her gardening tools again, because the last time Noel

left them out in the rain, and I don’t like it. He said he didn’t.

------------ SEEDS AND BULBS

These are useful to play at shop with, until you are ready. Not at

dinner-parties, for they will not grow unless uncooked. Potatoes are

not grown with seed, but with chopped-up potatoes. Apple trees are grown

from twigs, which is less wasteful.

Oak trees come from acorns. Every one knows this. When Noel says he

could grow one from a peach stone wrapped up in oak leaves, he shows

that he knows nothing about gardening but marigolds, and when I passed

by his garden I thought they seemed just like weeds now the flowers have

been picked.

A boy once dared me to eat a bulb.

Dogs are very industrious and fond of gardening. Pincher is always

planting bones, but they never grow up. There couldn’t be a bone tree.

I think this is what makes him bark so unhappily at night. He has never

tried planting dog-biscuit, but he is fonder of bones, and perhaps he

wants to be quite sure about them first.

------------ SAM REDFERN, OR THE BUSHRANGER’S BURIAL

By Dicky

------------ CHAPTER IV AND LAST

This would have been a jolly good story if they had let me finish it at

the beginning of the paper as I wanted to. But now I have forgotten how

I meant it to end, and I have lost my book about Red Indians, and all my

Boys of England have been sneaked. The girls say ‘Good riddance!’ so I

expect they did it. They want me just to put in which Annie married, but

I shan’t, so they will never know.

We have now put everything we can think of into the paper. It takes a

lot of thinking about. I don’t know how grown-ups manage to write all

they do. It must make their heads ache, especially lesson books.

Albert-next-door only wrote one chapter of the serial story, but he

could have done some more if he had wanted to. He could not write out

any of the things because he cannot spell. He says he can, but it takes

him such a long time he might just as well not be able. There are one or

two things more. I am sick of it, but Dora says she will write them in.

LEGAL ANSWER WANTED. A quantity of excellent string is offered if you

know whether there really is a law passed about not buying gunpowder

under thirteen.--DICKY.

The price of this paper is one shilling each, and sixpence extra for the

picture of the Malabar going down with all hands. If we sell one hundred

copies we will write another paper.

* * *

And so we would have done, but we never did. Albert-next-door’s uncle

gave us two shillings, that was all. You can’t restore fallen fortunes

with two shillings!