Chapter IV: Part 4

"No," he cried, in answer to our anxious inquiries. "I'm not hurt a bit, but the wall here feels soft--at least not soft--but it doesn't scratch your nails like stone does, so perhaps it's the door of a secret dungeon or something like that."

"Good old Dentist!" replied Oswald, who always likes Denny to have ideas of his own, because it was us who taught him the folly of white-mousishness.

"It might be," he went on, "but these barrels are as heavy as lead, and much more awkward to collar hold of."

"Couldn't we get in some other way?" Alice said. "There ought to be a subterranean passage. I expect there is if we only knew."

Oswald has an enormous geographical bump in his head. He said--

"Look here! That far cellar, where the wall doesn't go quite up to the roof--that space we made out was under the dining-room--I could creep under there. I believe it leads into behind this door."

"Get me out! Oh do, do get me out, and let me come!" shouted the barrel-imprisoned Dentist from the unseen regions near the door.

So we got him out by Oswald lying flat on his front on the top barrel, and the Dentist clawed himself up by Oswald's hands while the others kept hold of the boots of the representative of the house of Bastable, which, of course, Oswald is, whenever Father is not there.

"Come on," cried Oswald, when Denny was at last able to appear, very cobwebby and black. "Give us what's left of the matches!"

The others agreed to stand by the barrels and answer our knocking on the door if we ever got there.

"But I daresay we shall perish on the way," said Oswald hopefully.

So we started. The other cellar was easily found by the ingenious and geography-bump-headed Oswald. It opened straight on to the moat, and we think it was a boathouse in middle-aged times.

Denny made a back for Oswald, who led the way, and then he turned round and hauled up his inexperienced, but rapidly improving, follower on to the top of the wall that did not go quite up to the roof.

"It is like coal mines," he said, beginning to crawl on hands and knees over what felt like very prickly beach, "only we've no picks or shovels."

"And no Sir Humphry Davy safety lamps," said Denny in sadness.

"They wouldn't be any good," said Oswald; "they're only to protect the hard-working mining men against fire-damp and choke-damp. And there's none of those kinds here."

"No," said Denny, "the damp here is only just the common kind."

"Well, then," said Oswald, and they crawled a bit further still on their furtive and unassuming stomachs.

"This is a very glorious adventure. It is, isn't it?" inquired the Dentist in breathlessness, when the young stomachs of the young explorers had bitten the dust for some yards further.

"Yes," said Oswald, encouraging the boy, "and it's _your_ find, too," he added, with admirable fairness and justice, unusual in one so young. "I only hope we shan't find a mouldering skeleton buried alive behind that door when we get to it. Come on. What are you stopping for now?" he added kindly.

"It's--it's only cobwebs in my throat," Denny remarked, and he came on, though slower than before.

Oswald, with his customary intrepid caution, was leading the way, and he paused every now and then to strike a match because it was pitch dark, and at any moment the courageous leader might have tumbled into a well or a dungeon, or knocked his dauntless nose against something in the dark.

"It's all right for you," he said to Denny, when he had happened to kick his follower in the eye. "You've nothing to fear except my boots, and whatever they do is accidental, and so it doesn't count, but _I_ may be going straight into some trap that has been yawning for me for countless ages."

"I won't come on so fast, thank you," said the Dentist. "I don't think you've kicked my eye out yet."

So they went on and on, crampedly crawling on what I have mentioned before, and at last Oswald did not strike the next match carefully enough, and with the suddenness of a falling star his hands, which, with his knees, he was crawling on, went over the edge into infinite space, and his chest alone, catching sharply on the edge of the precipice, saved him from being hurled to the bottom of it.

"Halt!" he cried, as soon as he had any breath again. But, alas! it was too late! The Dentist's nose had been too rapid, and had caught up the boot-heel of the daring leader. This was very annoying to Oswald, and was not in the least his fault.

"Do keep your nose off my boots half a sec.," he remarked, but not crossly. "I'll strike a match."

And he did, and by its weird and unscrutatious light looked down into the precipice.

Its bottom transpired to be not much more than six feet below, so Oswald turned the other end of himself first, hung by his hands, and dropped with fearless promptness, uninjured, in another cellar. He then helped Denny down. The cornery thing Denny happened to fall on could not have hurt him so much as he said.

The light of the torch, I mean match, now revealed to the two bold and youthful youths another cellar, with _things_ in it--very dirty indeed, but of thrilling interest and unusual shapes, but the match went out before we could see exactly what the things were.

The next match was the last but one, but Oswald was undismayed, whatever Denny may have been. He lighted it and looked hastily round. There was a door.

"Bang on that door--over there, silly!" he cried, in cheering accents, to his trusty lieutenant; "behind that thing that looks like a _chevaux de frize_."

Denny had never been to Woolwich, and while Oswald was explaining what a _chevaux de frize_ is, the match burnt his fingers almost to the bone, and he had to feel his way to the door and hammer on it yourself.

The blows of the others from the other side were deafening.

All was saved.

It was the right door.

"Go and ask for candles and matches," shouted the brave Oswald. "Tell them there are all sorts of things in here--a _chevaux de frize_ of chair-legs, and----"

"A shovel of _what_?" asked Dicky's voice hollowly from the other side of the door.

"Freeze," shouted Denny. "I don't know what it means, but do get a candle and make them unbarricade the door. I don't want to go back the way we came." He said something about Oswald's boots that he was sorry for afterwards, so I will not repeat it, and I don't think the others heard, because of the noise the barrels made while they were being climbed over.

This noise, however, was like balmy zephyrs compared to the noise the barrels insisted on making when Dicky had collected some grown-ups and the barrels were being rolled away. During this thunder-like interval Denny and Oswald were all the time in the pitch dark. They had lighted their last match, and by its flickering gleam we saw a long, large mangle.

"It's like a double coffin," said Oswald, as the match went out. "You can take my arm if you like, Dentist."

The Dentist did--and then afterwards he said he only did it because he thought Oswald was frightened of the dark.

"It's only for a little while," said Oswald in the pauses of the barrel-thunder, "and I once read about two brothers confined for life in a cage so constructed that the unfortunate prisoners could neither sit, lie, nor stand in comfort. We can do all those things."

"Yes," said Denny; "but I'd rather keep on standing if it's the same to you, Oswald. I don't like spiders--not much, that is."

"You are right," said Oswald with affable gentleness; "and there might be toads perhaps in a vault like this--or serpents guarding the treasure like in the Cold Lairs. But of course they couldn't have cobras in England. They'd have to put up with vipers, I suppose."

Denny shivered, and Oswald could feel him stand first on one leg and then on the other.

"I wish I could stand on neither of my legs for a bit," he said, but Oswald answered firmly that this could not be.

And then the door opened with a crack-crash, and we saw lights and faces through it, and something fell from the top of the door that Oswald really did think for one awful instant was a hideous mass of writhing serpents put there to guard the entrance.

"Like a sort of live booby-trap," he explained; "just the sort of thing a magician or a witch would have thought of doing."

But it was only dust and cobwebs--a thick, damp mat of them.

Then the others surged in, in light-hearted misunderstanding of the perils Oswald had led Denny into--I mean through, with Mr. Red House and another gentleman, and loud voices and candles that dripped all over everybody's hands, as well as their clothes, and the solitary confinement of the gallant Oswald was at an end. Denny's solitary confinement was at an end, too--and he was now able to stand on both legs and to let go the arm of his leader who was so full of fortitude.

"This _is_ a find," said the pleased voice of Mr. Red House. "Do you know, we've been in this house six whole months and a bit, and _we_ never thought of there being a door here."

"Perhaps you don't often play 'King of the Castle,'" said Dora politely; "it _is_ rather a rough game, I always think."

"Well, curiously enough, we never have," said Mr. Red House, beginning to lift out the chairs, in which avocation we all helped, of course.

"Nansen is nothing to you! You ought to have a medal for daring explorations," said the other gentleman, but nobody gave us one, and, of course, we did not want any reward for doing our duty, however tight and cobwebby.

The cellars proved to be well stocked with spiders and old furniture, but no toads or snakes, which few, if any, regretted. Snakes are outcasts from human affection. Oswald pities them, of course.

There was a great lumpish thing in four parts that Mr. Red House said was a press, and a ripping settle--besides the chairs, and some carved wood that Mr. Red House and his friend made out to be part of an old four-post bed. There was also a wooden thing like a box with another box on it at one end, and H.O. said--

"You could make a ripping rabbit-hutch out of that."

Oswald thought so himself. But Mr. Red House said he had other uses for it, and would bring it up later.

It took us all that was left of the afternoon to get the things up the stairs into the kitchen. It was hard work, but we know all about the dignity of labour. The general hated the things we had so enterprisingly discovered. I suppose she knew who would have to clean them, but Mrs. Red House was awfully pleased and said we were dears.

We were not very clean dears by the time our work was done, and when the other gentleman said, "Won't you all take a dish of tea under my humble roof?" the words "Like this?" were formed by more than one youthful voice.

"Well, if you would be happier in a partially cleansed state?" said Mr. Red House. And Mrs. Red House, who is my idea of a feudal lady in a castle, said, "Oh, come along, let's go and partially clean ourselves. I'm dirtier than anybody, though I haven't explored a bit. I've often noticed that the more you admire things the more they come off on you!"

So we all washed as much as we cared to, and went to tea at the gentleman's house, which was only a cottage, but very beautiful. He had been a war correspondent, and he knew a great many things, besides having books and books of pictures.

It was a splendid party.

We thanked Mrs. R.H. and everybody when it was time to go, and she kissed the girls and the little boys, and then she put her head on one side and looked at Oswald and said, "I suppose you're too old?"

Oswald did not like to say he was not. If kissed at all he would prefer it being for some other reason than his being not too old for it. So he did not know what to say. But Noel chipped in with--

"_You'll_ never be too old for it," to Mrs. Red House--which seemed to Oswald most silly and unmeaning, because she was already much too old to be kissed by people unless she chose to begin it. But every one seemed to think Noel had said something clever. And Oswald felt like a young ass. But Mrs. R.H. looked at him so kindly and held out her hand so queenily that, before he knew he meant to, he had kissed it like you do the Queen's. Then, of course, Denny and Dicky went and did the same. Oswald wishes that the word "kiss" might never be spoken again in this world. Not that he minded kissing Mrs. Red House's hand in the least, especially as she seemed to think it was nice of him to--but the whole thing is such contemptible piffle.

We were seen home by the gentleman who wasn't Mr. Red House, and he stood a glorious cab with a white horse who had a rolling eye, from Blackheath Station, and so ended one of the most adventuring times we ever got out of a play-beginning.

The _time_ ended as the author has pointed out, but not its resultingness. Thus we ever find it in life--the most unharmful things, thoroughly approved even by grown-ups, but too often lead to something quite different, and that no one can possibly approve of, not even yourself when you come to think it over afterwards, like Noel and H.O. had to.

It was but natural that the hearts of the young explorers should have dwelt fondly on everything underground, even drains, which was what made us read a book by Mr. Hugo, all the next day. It is called "The Miserables," in French, and the man in it, who is a splendid hero, though a convict and a robber and various other professions, escapes into a drain with great rats in it, and is miraculously restored to the light of day, unharmed by the kindly rodents. (N.B.--Rodents mean rats.)

When we had finished all the part about drains it was nearly dinner-time, and Noel said quite suddenly in the middle of a bite of mutton--

"The Red House isn't nearly so red as ours is outside. Why should the cellars be so much cellarier? Shut up H.O.!" For H.O. was trying to speak.

Dora explained to him how we don't all have exactly the same blessings, but he didn't seem to see it.

"It doesn't seem like the way things happen in books," he said, "In Walter Scott it wouldn't be like that, nor yet in Anthony Hope. I should think the rule would be the redder the cellarier. If I was putting it into poetry I should make our cellars have something much wonderfuller in them than just wooden things. H.O., if you don't shut up I'll never let you be in anything again."

"There's that door you go down steps to," said Dicky; "we've never been in there. If Dora and I weren't going with Miss Blake to be fitted for boots we might try that."

"That's just what I was coming to. (Stow it, H.O.!) I felt just like cellars to-day, while you other chaps were washing your hands for din.--and it was very cold; but I made H.O. feel the same, and we went down, and--that door _isn't shut now_."

The intelligible reader may easily guess that we finished our dinner as quickly as we could, and we put on our outers, sympathising with Dicky and Dora, who, owing to boots, were out of it, and we went into the garden. There are five steps down to that door. They were red brick when they began, but now they are green with age and mysteriousness and not being walked on. And at the bottom of them the door was, as Noel said, not fastened. We went in.

"It isn't beery, winey cellars at all," Alice said; "it's more like a robber's store-house. Look there."

We had got to the inner cellar, and there were heaps of carrots and other vegetables.

"Halt, my men!" cried Oswald, "advance not an inch further! The bandits may lurk not a yard from you!"

"Suppose they jump out on us?" said H.O.

"They will not rashly leap into the light," said the discerning Oswald. And he went to fetch a new dark-lantern of his that he had not had any chance of really using before. But some one had taken Oswald's secret matches, and then the beastly lantern wouldn't light for ever so long. But he thought it didn't matter his being rather a long time gone, because the others could pass the time in wondering whether anything would jump out on them, and if so, what and when.

So when he got back to the red steps and the open door and flashed his glorious bull's-eye round it was rather an annoying thing for there not to be a single other eye for it to flash into. Every one had vanished.

"Hallo!" cried Oswald, and if his gallant voice trembled he is not ashamed of it, because he knows about wells in cellars, and, for an instant, even he did not know what had happened.

But an answering hullo came from beyond, and he hastened after the others.

"Look out," said Alice; "don't tumble over that heap of bones."

Oswald did look out--of course, he would not wish to walk on any one's bones. But he did not jump back with a scream, whatever Noel may say when he is in a temper.

The heap really did look very like bones, partly covered with earth. Oswald was glad to learn that they were only parsnips.

"We waited as long as we could," said Alice, "but we thought perhaps you'd been collared for some little thing you'd forgotten all about doing, and wouldn't be able to come back, but we found Noel had, fortunately, got your matches. I'm so glad you weren't collared, Oswald dear."

Some boys would have let Noel know about the matches, but Oswald didn't. The heaps of carrots and turnips and parsnips and things were not very interesting when you knew that they were not bleeding warriors' or pilgrims' bones, and it was too cold to pretend for long with any comfort to the young Pretenders. So Oswald said--

"Let's go out on the Heath and play something warm. You can't warm yourself with matches, even if they're not your own."

That was all he said. A great hero would not stoop to argue about matches.

And Alice said, "All right," and she and Oswald went out and played pretending golf with some walking-sticks of Father's. But Noel and H.O. preferred to sit stuffily over the common-room fire. So that Oswald and Alice, as well as Dora and Dicky, who were being measured for boots, were entirely out of the rest of what happened, and the author can only imagine the events that now occurred.

When Noel and H.O. had roasted their legs by the fire till they were so hot that their stockings quite hurt them, one of them must have said to the other--I never knew which:

"Let's go and have another look at that cellar."

The other--whoever it was--foolishly consented. So they went, and they took Oswald's dark-lantern in his absence and without his leave.

They found a hitherto unnoticed door behind the other one, and Noel says he said, "We'd better not go in." H.O. says he said so too. But any way, they _did_ go in.

They found themselves in a small vaulted place that we found out afterwards had been used for mushrooms. But it was long since any fair bud of a mushroom had blossomed in that dark retreat. The place had been cleaned and new shelves put up, and when Noel and H.O. saw what was on these shelves the author is sure they turned pale, though they say not.

For what they saw was coils, and pots, and wires; and one of them said, in a voice that must have trembled--

"It is dynamite, I am certain of it; what shall we do?"

I am certain the other said, "This is to blow up Father because he took part in the Lewisham Election, and his side won."

The reply no doubt was, "There is no time for delay; we must act. We must cut the fuse--all the fuses; there are dozens."

Oswald thinks it was not half bad business, those two kids--for Noel is little more than one, owing to his poetry and his bronchitis--standing in the abode of dynamite and not screeching, or running off to tell Miss Blake, or the servants, or any one--but just doing _the right thing_ without any fuss.

I need hardly say it did not prove to be the right thing--but they thought it was. And Oswald cannot think that you are really doing wrong if you really think you are doing right. I hope you will understand this.

I believe the kids tried cutting the fuses with Dick's pocket-knife that was in the pocket of his other clothes. But the fuses would not--no matter how little you trembled when you touched them.

But at last, with scissors and the gas pliers, they cut every fuse. The fuses were long, twisty, wire things covered with green wool, like blind-cords.

Then Noel and H.O. (and Oswald for one thinks it showed a goodish bit of pluck, and policemen have been made heroes for less) got cans and cans of water from the tap by the greenhouse and poured sluicing showers of the icy fluid in among the internal machinery of the dynamite arrangement--for so they believed it to be.

Then, very wet, but feeling that they had saved their Father and the house, they went and changed their clothes. I think they were a little stuck-up about it, believing it to be an act unrivalled in devotedness, and they were most tiresome all the afternoon, talking about their secret, and not letting us know what it was.

But when Father came home, early, as it happened, those swollen-headed, but, in Oswald's opinion, quite-to-be-excused, kiddies learned the terrible truth.

Of course Oswald and Dicky would have known at once; if Noel and H.O. hadn't been so cocky about not telling us, we could have exposed the truth to them in all its uninteresting nature.

I hope the reader will now prepare himself for a shock. In a wild whirl of darkness, and the gas being cut off, and not being able to get any light, and Father saying all sorts of things, it all came out.

Those coils and jars and wires in that cellar were not an infernal machine at all. It was--I know you will be very much surprised--it was the electric lights and bells that Father had had put in while we were at the Red House the day before.

H.O. and Noel caught it very fully; and Oswald thinks this was one of the few occasions when my Father was not as just as he meant to be. My uncle was not just either, but then it is much longer since he was a boy, so we must make excuses for him.

* * * * *

We sent Mrs. Red House a Christmas card each. In spite of the trouble that her cellars had lured him into, Noel sent her a homemade one with an endless piece of his everlasting poetry on it, and next May she wrote and asked us to come and see her. _We_ try to be just, and we saw that it was not really her fault that Noel and H.O. had cut those electric wires, so we all went; but we did not take Albert Morrison, because he was fortunately away with an aged god-parent of his mother's who writes tracts at Tunbridge Wells.

The garden was all flowery and green, and Mr. and Mrs. Red House were nice and jolly, and we had a distinguished and first-class time.

But would you believe it?--that boxish thing in the cellar, that H.O. wanted them to make a rabbit-hutch of--well, Mr. Red House had cleaned it and mended it, and Mrs. Red House took us up to the room where it was, to let us look at it again. And, unbelievable to relate, it turned out to have rockers, and some one in dark, bygone ages seems, for reasons unknown to the present writer, to have wasted no end of carpentry and carving on it, just to make it into a _Cradle_. And what is more, since we were there last Mr. and Mrs. Red House had succeeded in obtaining a small but quite alive baby to put in it.

I suppose they thought it was wilful waste to have a cradle and no baby to use it. But it could so easily have been used for something else. It would have made a ripping rabbit-hutch, and babies are far more trouble than rabbits to keep, and not nearly so profitable, I believe.

_THE TURK IN CHAINS; OR, RICHARD'S REVENGE_

THE morning dawned in cloudless splendour. The sky was a pale cobalt colour, as in pictures of Swiss scenery. The sun shone brightly, and all the green things in the garden sparkled in the bewitching rays of the monarch of the skies.

The author of this does not like to read much about the weather in books, but he is obliged to put this piece in because it is true; and it is a thing that does not very often happen in the middle of January. In fact, I never remember the weather being at all like that in the winter except on that one day.

Of course we all went into the garden directly after brekker. (PS.--I have said green things: perhaps you think that is a _lapsus lazuli_, or slip of the tongue, and that there are not any green things in the winter. But there are. And not just evergreens either. Wallflowers and pansies and snapdragons and primroses, and lots of things, keep green all the year unless it's too frosty. Live and learn.)

And it was so warm we were able to sit in the summer-house. The birds were singing like mad. Perhaps they thought it was springtime. Or perhaps they always sing when they see the sun, without paying attention to dates.

And now, when all his brothers and sisters were sitting on the rustic seats in the summer-house, the far-sighted Oswald suddenly saw that now was the moment for him to hold that council he had been wanting to hold for some time.

So he stood in the door of the summer-house, in case any of the others should suddenly remember that they wanted to be in some other place. And he said--

"I say. About that council I want to hold."

And Dicky replied: "Well, what about it?"

So then Oswald explained all over again that we had been Treasure Seekers, and we had been Would-be-Goods, and he thought it was time we were something else.

"Being something else makes you think of things," he said at the end of all the other things he said.

"Yes," said H.O., yawning, without putting up his hand, which is not manners, and we told him so. "But _I_ can think of things without being other things. Look how I thought about being a clown, and going to Rome."

"I shouldn't think you would want us to remember _that_," said Dora. And indeed Father had not been pleased with H.O. about that affair. But Oswald never encourages Dora to nag, so he said patiently--

"Yes, you think of things you'd much better not have thought of. Now my idea is let's each say what sort of a society we shall make ourselves into--like we did when we were Treasure Seekers--about the different ways to look for it, I mean. Let's hold our tongues (no, not with your dirty fingers, H.O., old chap; hold it with your teeth if you must hold it with something)--let's hold our tongues for a bit, and then all say what we've thought of--in ages," the thoughtful boy added hastily, so that every one should not speak at once when we had done holding our tongues.

So we were all silent, and the birds sang industriously among the leafless trees of our large sunny garden in beautiful Blackheath. (The author is sorry to see he is getting poetical. It shall not happen again, and it _was_ an extra fine day, really, and the birds did sing, a fair treat.)

When three long minutes had elapsed themselves by the hands of Oswald's watch, which always keeps perfect time for three or four days after he has had it mended, he closed the watch and observed--

"Time! Go ahead, Dora."

Dora went ahead in the following remarks:

"I've thought as hard as I can, and nothing will come into my head except--

"'Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.'

Don't you think we might try to find some new ways to be good in?"

"No, you don't!" "I bar that!" came at once from the mouths of Dicky and Oswald.

"You don't come that over us twice," Dicky added. And Oswald eloquently said, "No more Would-be-Goods, thank you, Dora."

Dora said, well, she couldn't think of anything else. And she didn't expect Oswald had thought of anything better.

"Yes, I have," replied her brother. "What I think is that we don't _know_ half enough."

"If you mean extra swat," said Alice; "I've more homers than I care for already, thank you."

"I do not mean swat," rejoined the experienced Oswald. "I want to know all about real things, not booky things. If you kids had known about electric bells you wouldn't have----" Oswald stopped, and then said, "I won't say any more, because Father says a gentleman does not support his arguments with personal illusions to other people's faults and follies."

"Faults and follies yourself," said H.O. The girls restored peace, and Oswald went on--

"Let us seek to grow wiser, and to teach each other."

"_I_ bar that," said H.O. "I don't want Oswald and Dicky always on to me and call it teaching."

"We might call the society the Would-be-Wisers," said Oswald hastily.

"It's not so dusty," said Dicky; "let's go on to the others before we decide."

"You're next yourself," said Alice.

"Oh, so I am," remarked Dicky, trying to look surprised. "Well, my idea is let's be a sort of Industrious Society of Beavers, and make a solemn vow and covenant to make something every day. We might call it the Would-be-Clevers."

"It would be the Too-clever-by-half's before we'd done with it," said Oswald.

And Alice said, "We couldn't always make things that would be any good, and then we should have to do something that wasn't any good, and that would be rot. Yes, I know it's my turn--H.O., you'll kick the table to pieces if you go on like that. Do, for goodness' sake, keep your feet still. The only thing I can think of is a society called the Would-be-Boys."

"With you and Dora for members."

"And Noel--poets aren't boys exactly," said H.O.

"If you don't shut up you shan't be in it at all," said Alice, putting her arm round Noel. "No; I meant us all to be in it--only you boys are not to keep saying we're only girls, and let us do everything the same as you boys do."

"I don't want to be a boy, thank you," said Dora, "not when I see how they behave. H.O., _do_ stop sniffing and use your handkerchief. Well, take mine, then."

It was now Noel's turn to disclose his idea, which proved most awful.

"Let's be Would-be-Poets," he said, "and solemnly vow and convenient to write one piece of poetry a day as long as we live."

Most of us were dumb at the dreadful thought. But Alice said--

"That would never do, Noel dear, because you're the only one of us who's clever enough to do it."

So Noel's detestable and degrading idea was shelved without Oswald having to say anything that would have made the youthful poet weep.

"I suppose you don't mean me to say what I thought of," said H.O., "but I shall. I think you ought all to be in a Would-be-Kind Society, and vow solemn convents and things not to be down on your younger brother."

We explained to him at once that _he_ couldn't be in that, because he hadn't got a younger brother.

"And you may think yourself lucky you haven't," Dicky added.

The ingenious and felicitous Oswald was just going to begin about the council all over again, when the portable form of our Indian uncle came stoutly stumping down the garden path under the cedars.

"Hi, brigands!" he cried in his cheerful unclish manner. "Who's on for the Hippodrome this bright day?"

And instantly we all were. Even Oswald--because after all you can have a council any day, but Hippodromes are not like that.

We got ready like the whirlwind of the desert for quickness, and started off with our kind uncle, who has lived so long in India that he is much more warm-hearted than you would think to look at him.

Half-way to the station Dicky remembered his patent screw for working ships with. He had been messing with it in the bath while he was waiting for Oswald to have done plunging cleanly in the basin. And in the desert-whirlwinding he had forgotten to take it out. So now he ran back, because he knew how its cardboardiness would turn to pulp if it was left.

"I'll catch you up," he cried.

The uncle took the tickets and the train came in and still Dicky had not caught us up.

"Tiresome boy!" said the uncle; "you don't want to miss the beginning--eh, what? Ah, here he comes!" The uncle got in, and so did we, but Dicky did not see the uncle's newspaper which Oswald waved, and he went running up and down the train looking for us instead of just getting in anywhere sensibly, as Oswald would have done. When the train began to move he did try to open a carriage door but it stuck, and the train went faster, and just as he got it open a large heavy porter caught him by the collar and pulled him off the train, saying--

"Now, young shaver, no susansides on this ere line, if _you_ please."

Dicky hit the porter, but his fury was vain. Next moment the train had passed away, and us in it. Dicky had no money, and the uncle had all the tickets in the pocket of his fur coat.

* * * * *

I am not going to tell you anything about the Hippodrome because the author feels that it was a trifle beastly of us to have enjoyed it as much as we did considering Dicky. We tried not to talk about it before him when we got home, but it was very difficult--especially the elephants.

* * * * *

I suppose he spent an afternoon of bitter thoughts after he had told that porter what he thought of him, which took some time, and the station-master interfered in the end.

When we got home he was all right with us. He had had time to see it was not our faults, whatever he thought at the time.

He refused to talk about it. Only he said--

"I'm going to take it out of that porter. You leave me alone. I shall think of something presently."

"Revenge is very wrong," said Dora; but even Alice asked her kindly to dry up. We all felt that it was simply piffle to talk copy-book to one so disappointed as our unfortunate brother.

"It _is_ wrong, though," said Dora.

"Wrong be blowed!" said Dicky, snorting; "who began it I should like to know! The station's a beastly awkward place to take it out of any one in. I wish I knew where he lived."

"_I_ know _that_," said Noel. "I've known it a long time--before Christmas, when we were going to the Moat House."

"Well, what is it, then?" asked Dicky savagely.

"Don't bite his head off," remarked Alice. "Tell us about it, Noel. How do you know?"

"It was when you were weighing yourselves on the weighing machine. I didn't because my weight isn't worth being weighed for. And there was a heap of hampers and turkeys and hares and things, and there was a label on a turkey and brown-paper parcel; and that porter that you hate so said to the other porter----"

"Oh, hurry up, do!" said Dicky.

"I won't tell you at all if you bully me," said Noel, and Alice had to coax him before he would go on.

"Well, he looked at the label and said, 'Little mistake here, Bill--wrong address; ought to be 3, Abel Place, eh?'

"And the other one looked, and he said, 'Yes; it's got your name right enough. Fine turkey, too, and his chains in the parcel. Pity they ain't more careful about addressing things, eh?' So when they had done laughing about it I looked at the label and it said, 'James Johnson, 8, Granville Park.' So I knew it was 3, Abel Place, he lived at, and his name was James Johnson."

"Good old Sherlock Holmes!" said Oswald.

"You won't really _hurt_ him," said Noel, "will you? Not Corsican revenge with knives, or poisoned bowls? I wouldn't do more than a good booby-trap, if I was you."

When Noel said the word "booby-trap," we all saw a strange, happy look come over Dicky's face. It is called a far-away look, I believe, and you can see it in the picture of a woman cuddling a photograph-album with her hair down, that is in all the shops, and they call it "The Soul's Awakening."

Directly Dicky's soul had finished waking up he shut his teeth together with a click. Then he said, "I've got it."

Of course we all knew that.

"Any one who thinks revenge is wrong is asked to leave _now_."

Dora said he was very unkind, and did he really want to turn her out?

"There's a jolly good fire in Father's study," he said. "No, I'm not waxy with you, but I'm going to have my revenge, and I don't want you to do anything you thought wrong. You'd only make no end of a fuss afterwards."

"Well, it _is_ wrong, so I'll go," said Dora. "Don't say I didn't warn you, that's all!"

And she went.

Then Dicky said, "Now, any more conscious objectors?"

And when no one replied he went on: "It was you saying 'Booby-trap' gave me the idea. His name's James Johnson, is it? And he said the things were addressed wrong, did he? Well, _I'll_ send him a Turkey-and-chains."

"A Turk in chains," said Noel, growing owley-eyed at the thought--"a _live_ Turk--or--no, not a dead one, Dicky?"

"The Turk I'm going to send won't be a live one nor yet a dead one."

"How horrible! _Half_ dead. That's worse than anything," and Noel became so green in the face that Alice told Dicky to stop playing the goat, and tell us what his idea really was.

"Don't you see _yet_?" he cried; "_I_ saw it directly."

"I daresay," said Oswald; "it's easy to see your own idea. Drive ahead."

"Well, I'm going to get a hamper and pack it full of parcels and put a list of them on the top--beginning Turk-and-chains, and send it to Mister James Johnson, and when he opens the parcels there'll be nothing inside."

"There must be something, you know," said H.O., "or the parcels won't be any shape except flatness."

"Oh, there'll be _something_ right enough," was the bitter reply of the one who had not been to the Hippodrome, "but it won't be the sort of something he'll expect it to be. Let's do it now. I'll get a hamper."

He got a big one out of the cellar and four empty bottles with their straw cases. We filled the bottles with black ink and water, and red ink and water, and soapy water, and water plain. And we put them down on the list--

1 bottle of port wine.
1 bottle of sherry wine.
1 bottle of sparkling champagne.
1 bottle of rum.

The rest of the things we put on the list were--

1 turkey-and-chains.
2 pounds of chains.
1 plum-pudding.
4 pounds of mince-pies.
2 pounds of almonds and raisins.
1 box of figs.
1 bottle of French plums.
1 large cake.

And we made up parcels to look outside as if their inside was full of the delicious attributes described in the list. It was rather difficult to get anything the shape of a turkey but with coals and crushed newspapers and firewood we did it, and when it was done up with lots of string and the paper artfully squeezed tight to the firewood to look like the Turk's legs it really was almost lifelike in its deceivingness. The chains, or sausages, we did with dusters--and not clean ones--rolled tight, and the paper moulded gently to their forms. The plum-pudding was a newspaper ball. The mince-pies were newspapers too, and so were the almonds and raisins. The box of figs was a real fig-box with cinders and ashes in it damped to keep them from rattling about. The French-plum bottle was real too. It had newspaper soaked in ink in it, and the cake was half a muff-box of Dora's done up very carefully and put at the bottom of the hamper. Inside the muff-box we put a paper with--

"Revenge is not wrong when the other people begin. It was you began, and now you are jolly well served out."

We packed all the bottles and parcels into the hamper, and put the list on the very top, pinned to the paper that covered the false breast of the imitation Turk.

Dicky wanted to write--"From an unknown friend," but we did not think that was fair, considering how Dicky felt.

So at last we put--"From one who does not wish to sign his name."

And that was true, at any rate.

Dicky and Oswald lugged the hamper down to the shop that has Carter Paterson's board outside.

"I vote we don't pay the carriage," said Dicky, but that was perhaps because he was still so very angry about being pulled off the train. Oswald had not had it done to him, so he said that we ought to pay the carriage. And he was jolly glad afterwards that this honourable feeling had arisen in his young bosom, and that he had jolly well made Dicky let it rise in his.

We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but Dicky said it was cheap for a high-class revenge like this, and after all it was his money the carriage was paid with.

So then we went home and had another go in of grub--because tea had been rather upset by Dicky's revenge.

The people where we left the hamper told us that it would be delivered next day. So next morning we gloated over the thought of the sell that porter was in for, and Dicky was more deeply gloating than any one.

"I expect it's got there by now," he said at dinner-time; "it's a first class booby-trap; what a sell for him! He'll read the list and then he'll take out one parcel after another till he comes to the cake. It _was_ a ripping idea! I'm glad I thought of it!"

"I'm not," said Noel suddenly. "I wish you hadn't--I wish we hadn't. I know just exactly what he feels like now. He feels as if he'd like to _kill_ you for it, and I daresay he would if you hadn't been a craven, white-feathered skulker and not signed your name."

It was a thunderbolt in our midst Noel behaving like this. It made Oswald feel a sick inside feeling that perhaps Dora had been right. She sometimes is--and Oswald hates this feeling.

Dicky was so surprised at the unheard-of cheek of his young brother that for a moment he was speechless, and before he got over his speechlessness Noel was crying and wouldn't have any more dinner. Alice spoke in the eloquent language of the human eye and begged Dicky to look over it this once. And he replied by means of the same useful organ that he didn't care what a silly kid thought. So no more was said. When Noel had done crying he began to write a piece of poetry and kept at it all the afternoon. Oswald only saw just the beginning. It was called

"THE DISAPPOINTED PORTER'S FURY
_Supposed to be by the Porter himself_,"

and it began:--

"When first I opened the hamper fair
And saw the parcel inside there
My heart rejoiced like dry gardens when
It rains--but soon I changed and then
I seized my trusty knife and bowl
Of poison, and said 'Upon the whole
I will have the life of the man
Or woman who thought of this wicked plan
To deceive a trusting porter so.
No noble heart would have thought of it. No.'"

There were pages and pages of it. Of course it was all nonsense--the poetry, I mean. And yet . . . . . . (I have seen that put in books when the author does not want to let out all he thought at the time.)

That evening at tea-time Jane came and said--

"Master Dicky, there's an old aged man at the door inquiring if you live here."

So Dicky thought it was the bootmaker perhaps; so he went out, and Oswald went with him, because he wanted to ask for a bit of cobbler's wax.

But it was not the shoemaker. It was an old man, pale in the face and white in the hair, and he was so old that we asked him into Father's study by the fire, as soon as we had found out it was really Dicky he wanted to see.

When we got him there he said--

"Might I trouble you to shut the door?"

This is the way a burglar or a murderer might behave, but we did not think he was one. He looked too old for these professions.

When the door was shut, he said--

"I ain't got much to say, young gemmen. It's only to ask was it you sent this?"

He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it was our list. Oswald and Dicky looked at each other.

"Did you send it?" said the old man again.

So then Dicky shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yes."

Oswald said, "How did you know and who are you?"

The old man got whiter than ever. He pulled out a piece of paper--it was the greenish-grey piece we'd wrapped the Turk and chains in. And it had a label on it that we hadn't noticed, with Dicky's name and address on it. The new bat he got at Christmas had come in it.

"That's how I know," said the old man. "Ah, be sure your sin will find you out."

"But who are you, anyway!" asked Oswald again.

"Oh, _I_ ain't nobody in particular," he said. "I'm only the father of the pore gell as you took in with your cruel, deceitful, lying tricks. Oh, you may look uppish, young sir, but I'm here to speak my mind, and I'll speak it if I die for it. So now!"

"But we didn't send it to a girl," said Dicky. "We wouldn't do such a thing. We sent it for a--for a----" I think he tried to say for a joke, but he couldn't with the fiery way the old man looked at him--"for a sell, to pay a porter out for stopping me getting into a train when it was just starting, and I missed going to the Circus with the others." Oswald was glad Dicky was not too proud to explain to the old man. He was rather afraid he might be.

"I never sent it to a girl," he said again.

"Ho," said the aged one. "An' who told you that there porter was a single man? It was his wife--my pore gell--as opened your low parcel, and she sees your lying list written out so plain on top, and, sez she to me, 'Father,' says she, 'ere's a friend in need! All these good things for us, and no name signed, so that we can't even say thank you. I suppose it's some one knows how short we are just now, and hardly enough to eat with coals the price they are,' says she to me. 'I do call that kind and Christian,' says she, 'and I won't open not one of them lovely parcels till Jim comes 'ome,' she says, 'and we'll enjoy the pleasures of it together, all three of us,' says she. And when he came home--we opened of them lovely parcels. She's a cryin' her eyes out at home now, and Jim, he only swore once, and I don't blame him for that one--though never an evil speaker myself--and then he set himself down on a chair and puts his elbows on it to hide his face like--and 'Emmie,' says he, 'so help me. I didn't know I'd got an enemy in the world. I always thought we'd got nothing but good friends,' says he. An' I says nothing, but I picks up the paper, and comes here to your fine house to tell you what I think of you. It's a mean, low-down, dirty, nasty trick, and no gentleman wouldn't a-done it. So that's all--and it's off my chest, and good-night to you gentlemen both!"

He turned to go out. I shall not tell you what Oswald felt, except that he did hope Dicky felt the same, and would behave accordingly. And Dicky did, and Oswald was both pleased and surprised.

Dicky said--

"Oh, I say, stop a minute. I didn't think of your poor girl."

"And her youngest but a bare three weeks old," said the old man angrily.

"I didn't, on my honour I didn't think of anything but paying the porter out."

"He was only a doing of his duty," the old man said.

"Well, I beg your pardon and his," said Dicky; "it was ungentlemanly, and I'm very sorry. And I'll try to make it up somehow. Please make it up. I can't do more than own I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't--there!"

"Well," said the old man slowly, "we'll leave it at that. Next time p'r'aps you'll think a bit who it's going to be as'll get the benefit of your payings out."

Dicky made him shake hands, and Oswald did the same.

Then we had to go back to the others and tell them. It was hard. But it was ginger-ale and seed-cake compared to having to tell Father, which was what it came to in the end. For we all saw, though Noel happened to be the one to say it first, that the only way we could really make it up to James Johnson and his poor girl and his poor girl's father, and the baby that was only three weeks old, was to send them a hamper with all the things in it--_real_ things, that we had put on the list in the revengeful hamper. And as we had only six-and-sevenpence among us we had to tell Father. Besides, you feel better inside when you have. He talked to us about it a bit, but he is a good Father and does not jaw unduly. He advanced our pocket-money to buy a real large Turk-and-chains. And he gave us six bottles of port wine, because he thought that would be better for the poor girl who had the baby than rum or sherry or even sparkling champagne.

We were afraid to send the hamper by Carter Pat. for fear they should think it was another Avenging Take-in. And that was one reason why we took it ourselves in a cab. The other reason was that we wanted to see them open the hamper, and another was that we wanted--at least Dicky wanted--to have it out man to man with the porter and his wife, and tell them himself how sorry he was.

So we got our gardener to find out secretly when that porter was off duty, and when we knew the times we went to his house at one of them.

Then Dicky got out of the cab and went in and said what he had to say. And then we took in the hamper.