by Edith Nesbit
H. O. said Alice wasn’t a lady; and she said he wasn’t going, anyway. Then he called her a disagreeable cat, and she began to cry.
But Oswald always tries to make up quarrels, so he said —
‘You’re little sillies, both of you!’
And Dora said, ‘Don’t cry, Alice; he only meant you weren’t a grown-up lady.’
Then H. O. said, ‘What else did you think I meant, Disagreeable?’
So Dicky said, ‘Don’t be disagreeable yourself, H. O. Let her alone and say you’re sorry, or I’ll jolly well make you!’
So H. O. said he was sorry. Then Alice kissed him and said she was sorry too; and after that H. O. gave her a hug, and said, ‘Now I’m really and truly sorry,’ So it was all right.
Noel went the last time any of us went to London, so he was out of it, and Dora said she would take him to Blackheath if we’d take H. O. So as there’d been a little disagreeableness we thought it was better to take him, and we did. At first we thought we’d tear our oldest things a bit more, and put some patches of different colours on them, to show the G. B. how much we wanted money. But Dora said that would be a sort of cheating, pretending we were poorer than we are. And Dora is right sometimes, though she is our elder sister. Then we thought we’d better wear our best things, so that the G. B. might see we weren’t so very poor that he couldn’t trust us to pay his money back when we had it. But Dora said that would be wrong too. So it came to our being quite honest, as Dora said, and going just as we were, without even washing our faces and hands; but when I looked at H. O. in the train I wished we had not been quite so particularly honest.
Every one who reads this knows what it is like to go in the train, so I shall not tell about it — though it was rather fun, especially the part where the guard came for the tickets at Waterloo, and H. O. was under the seat and pretended to be a dog without a ticket. We went to Charing Cross, and we just went round to Whitehall to see the soldiers and then by St James’s for the same reason — and when we’d looked in the shops a bit we got to Brook Street, Bond Street. It was a brass plate on a door next to a shop — a very grand place, where they sold bonnets and hats — all very bright and smart, and no tickets on them to tell you the price. We rang a bell and a boy opened the door and we asked for Mr Rosenbaum. The boy was not polite; he did not ask us in. So then Dicky gave him his visiting card; it was one of Father’s really, but the name is the same, Mr Richard Bastable, and we others wrote our names underneath. I happened to have a piece of pink chalk in my pocket and we wrote them with that.
Then the boy shut the door in our faces and we waited on the step. But presently he came down and asked our business. So Dicky said —
‘Money advanced, young shaver! and don’t be all day about it!’
And then he made us wait again, till I was quite stiff in my legs, but Alice liked it because of looking at the hats and bonnets, and at last the door opened, and the boy said —
‘Mr Rosenbaum will see you,’ so we wiped our feet on the mat, which said so, and we went up stairs with soft carpets and into a room. It was a beautiful room. I wished then we had put on our best things, or at least washed a little. But it was too late now.
The room had velvet curtains and a soft, soft carpet, and it was full of the most splendid things. Black and gold cabinets, and china, and statues, and pictures. There was a picture of a cabbage and a pheasant and a dead hare that was just like life, and I would have given worlds to have it for my own. The fur was so natural I should never have been tired of looking at it; but Alice liked the one of the girl with the broken jug best. Then besides the pictures there were clocks and candlesticks and vases, and gilt looking-glasses, and boxes of cigars and scent and things littered all over the chairs and tables. It was a wonderful place, and in the middle of all the splendour was a little old gentleman with a very long black coat and a very long white beard and a hookey nose — like a falcon. And he put on a pair of gold spectacles and looked at us as if he knew exactly how much our clothes were worth.
And then, while we elder ones were thinking how to begin, for we had all said ‘Good morning’ as we came in, of course, H. O. began before we could stop him. He said:
‘Are you the G. B.?’
‘The what?’ said the little old gentleman.
‘The G. B.,’ said H. O., and I winked at him to shut up, but he didn’t see me, and the G. B. did. He waved his hand at me to shut up, so I had to, and H. O. went on—’It stands for Generous Benefactor.’
The old gentleman frowned. Then he said, ‘Your Father sent you here, I suppose?’
‘No he didn’t,’ said Dicky. ‘Why did you think so?’
The old gentleman held out the card, and I explained that we took that because Father’s name happens to be the same as Dicky’s.
‘Doesn’t he know you’ve come?’
‘No,’ said Alice, ‘we shan’t tell him till we’ve got the partnership, because his own business worries him a good deal and we don’t want to bother him with ours till it’s settled, and then we shall give him half our share.’
The old gentleman took off his spectacles and rumpled his hair with his hands, then he said, ‘Then what did you come for?’
‘We saw your advertisement,’ Dicky said, ‘and we want a hundred pounds on our note of hand, and my sister came so that there should be both kinds of us; and we want it to buy a partnership with in the lucrative business for sale of useful patent. No personal attendance necessary.’
‘I don’t think I quite follow you,’ said the G. B. ‘But one thing I should like settled before entering more fully into the matter: why did you call me Generous Benefactor?’
‘Well, you see,’ said Alice, smiling at him to show she wasn’t frightened, though I know really she was, awfully, ‘we thought it was so very kind of you to try to find out the poor people who want money and to help them and lend them your money.’
‘Hum!’ said the G. B. ‘Sit down.’
He cleared the clocks and vases and candlesticks off some of the chairs, and we sat down. The chairs were velvety, with gilt legs. It was like a king’s palace.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘you ought to be at school, instead of thinking about money. Why aren’t you?’
We told him that we should go to school again when Father could manage it, but meantime we wanted to do something to restore the fallen fortunes of the House of Bastable. And we said we thought the lucrative patent would be a very good thing. He asked a lot of questions, and we told him everything we didn’t think Father would mind our telling, and at last he said —
‘You wish to borrow money. When will you repay it?’
‘As soon as we’ve got it, of course,’ Dicky said.
Then the G. B. said to Oswald, ‘You seem the eldest,’ but I explained to him that it was Dicky’s idea, so my being eldest didn’t matter. Then he said to Dicky—’You are a minor, I presume?’
Dicky said he wasn’t yet, but he had thought of being a mining engineer some day, and going to Klondike.
‘Minor, not miner,’ said the G. B. ‘I mean you’re not of age?’
‘I shall be in ten years, though,’ said Dicky. ‘Then you might repudiate the loan,’ said the G. B., and Dicky said ‘What?’
Of course he ought to have said ‘I beg your pardon. I didn’t quite catch what you said’ — that is what Oswald would have said. It is more polite than ‘What.’
‘Repudiate the loan,’ the G. B repeated. ‘I mean you might say you would not pay me back the money, and the law could not compel you to do so.’
‘Oh, well, if you think we’re such sneaks,’ said Dicky, and he got up off his chair. But the G. B. said, ‘Sit down, sit down; I was only joking.’
Then he talked some more, and at last he said—’I don’t advise you to enter into that partnership. It’s a swindle. Many advertisements are. And I have not a hundred pounds by me to-day to lend you. But I will lend you a pound, and you can spend it as you like. And when you are twenty-one
you shall pay me back.’
‘I shall pay you back long before that,’ said Dicky. ‘Thanks, awfully! And what about the note of hand?’
‘Oh,’ said the G. B., ‘I’ll trust to your honour. Between gentlemen, you know — and ladies’ — he made a beautiful bow to Alice—’a word is as good as a bond.’
Then he took out a sovereign, and held it in his hand while he talked to us. He gave us a lot of good advice about not going into business too young, and about doing our lessons — just swatting a bit, on our own hook, so as not to be put in a low form when we went back to school. And all the time he was stroking the sovereign and looking at it as if he thought it very beautiful. And so it was, for it was a new one. Then at last he held it out to Dicky, and when Dicky put out his hand for it the G. B. suddenly put the sovereign back in his pocket.
‘No,’ he said, ‘I won’t give you the sovereign. I’ll give you fifteen shillings, and this nice bottle of scent. It’s worth far more than the five shillings I’m charging you for it. And, when you can, you shall pay me back the pound, and sixty per cent interest — sixty per cent, sixty per cent.’
‘What’s that?’ said H. O.
The G. B. said he’d tell us that when we paid back the sovereign, but sixty per cent was nothing to be afraid of. He gave Dicky the money. And the boy was made to call a cab, and the G. B. put us in and shook hands with us all, and asked Alice to give him a kiss, so she did, and H. O. would do it too, though his face was dirtier than ever. The G. B. paid the cabman and told him what station to go to, and so we went home.
That evening Father had a letter by the seven-o’clock post. And when he had read it he came up into the nursery. He did not look quite so unhappy as usual, but he looked grave.
‘You’ve been to Mr Rosenbaum’s,’ he said.
So we told him all about it. It took a long time, and Father sat in the armchair. It was jolly. He doesn’t often come and talk to us now. He has to spend all his time thinking about his business. And when we’d told him all about it he said —
‘You haven’t done any harm this time, children; rather good than harm, indeed. Mr Rosenbaum has written me a very kind letter.’
‘Is he a friend of yours, Father?’ Oswald asked. ‘He is an acquaintance,’ said my father, frowning a little, ‘we have done some business together. And this letter—’ he stopped and then said: ‘No; you didn’t do any harm to-day; but I want you for the future not to do anything so serious as to try to buy a partnership without consulting me, that’s all. I don’t want to interfere with your plays and pleasures; but you will consult me about business matters, won’t you?’
Of course we said we should be delighted, but then Alice, who was sitting on his knee, said, ‘We didn’t like to bother you.’
Father said, ‘I haven’t much time to be with you, for my business takes most of my time. It is an anxious business — but I can’t bear to think of your being left all alone like this.’
He looked so sad we all said we liked being alone. And then he looked sadder than ever.
Then Alice said, ‘We don’t mean that exactly, Father. It is rather lonely sometimes, since Mother died.’
Then we were all quiet a little while. Father stayed with us till we went to bed, and when he said good night he looked quite cheerful. So we told him so, and he said —
‘Well, the fact is, that letter took a weight off my mind.’ I can’t think what he meant — but I am sure the G. B. would be pleased if he could know he had taken a weight off somebody’s mind. He is that sort of man, I think.
We gave the scent to Dora. It is not quite such good scent as we thought it would be, but we had fifteen shillings — and they were all good, so is the G. B.
And until those fifteen shillings were spent we felt almost as jolly as though our fortunes had been properly restored. You do not notice your general fortune so much, as long as you have money in your pocket. This is why so many children with regular pocket-money have never felt it their duty to seek for treasure. So, perhaps, our not having pocket-money was a blessing in disguise. But the disguise was quite impenetrable, like the villains’ in the books; and it seemed still more so when the fifteen shillings were all spent. Then at last the others agreed to let Oswald try his way of seeking for treasure, but they were not at all keen about it, and many a boy less firm than Oswald would have chucked the whole thing. But Oswald knew that a hero must rely on himself alone. So he stuck to it, and presently the others saw their duty, and backed him up.
CHAPTER 10. LORD TOTTENHAM
Oswald is a boy of firm and unswerving character, and he had never wavered from his first idea. He felt quite certain that the books were right, and that the best way to restore fallen fortunes was to rescue an old gentleman in distress. Then he brings you up as his own son: but if you preferred to go on being your own father’s son I expect the old gentleman would make it up to you some other way. In the books the least thing does it — you put up the railway carriage window — or you pick up his purse when he drops it — or you say a hymn when he suddenly asks you to, and then your fortune is made.
The others, as I said, were very slack about it, and did not seem to care much about trying the rescue. They said there wasn’t any deadly peril, and we should have to make one before we could rescue the old gentleman from it, but Oswald didn’t see that that mattered. However, he thought he would try some of the easier ways first, by himself.
So he waited about the station, pulling up railway carriage windows for old gentlemen who looked likely — but nothing happened, and at last the porters said he was a nuisance. So that was no go. No one ever asked him to say a hymn, though he had learned a nice short one, beginning ‘New every morning’ — and when an old gentleman did drop a two-shilling piece just by Ellis’s the hairdresser’s, and Oswald picked it up, and was just thinking what he should say when he returned it, the old gentleman caught him by the collar and called him a young thief. It would have been very unpleasant for Oswald if he hadn’t happened to be a very brave boy, and knew the policeman on that beat very well indeed. So the policeman backed him up, and the old gentleman said he was sorry, and offered Oswald sixpence. Oswald refused it with polite disdain, and nothing more happened at all.
When Oswald had tried by himself and it had not come off, he said to the others, ‘We’re wasting our time, not trying to rescue the old gentleman in deadly peril. Come — buck up! Do let’s do something!’
It was dinner-time, and Pincher was going round getting the bits off the plates. There were plenty because it was cold-mutton day. And Alice said —
‘It’s only fair to try Oswald’s way — he has tried all the things the others thought of. Why couldn’t we rescue Lord Tottenham?’
Lord Tottenham is the old gentleman who walks over the Heath every day in a paper collar at three o’clock — and when he gets halfway, if there is no one about, he changes his collar and throws the dirty one into the furze-bushes.
Dicky said, ‘Lord Tottenham’s all right — but where’s the deadly peril?’
And we couldn’t think of any. There are no highwaymen on Blackheath now, I am sorry to say. And though Oswald said half of us could be highwaymen and the other half rescue party, Dora kept on saying it would be wrong to be a highwayman — and so we had to give that up.
Then Alice said, ‘What about Pincher?’
And we all saw at once that it could be done.
Pincher is very well bred, and he does know one or two things, though we never could teach him to beg. But if you tell him to hold on — he will do it, even if you only say ‘Seize him!’ in a whisper.
So we arranged it all. Dora said she wouldn’t play; she said she thought it was wrong, and she knew it was silly — so we left her out, and she went and sat in the dining-room with a goody-book, so as to be able to say she didn’t have anything to do with it, if we got into a row over it.
Alice and H. O. were to hide in the furze-bushes just by where Lord Tottenham changes his co
llar, and they were to whisper, ‘Seize him!’ to Pincher; and then when Pincher had seized Lord Tottenham we were to go and rescue him from his deadly peril. And he would say, ‘How can I reward you, my noble young preservers?’ and it would be all right.
So we went up to the Heath. We were afraid of being late. Oswald told the others what Procrastination was — so they got to the furze-bushes a little after two o’clock, and it was rather cold. Alice and H. O. and Pincher hid, but Pincher did not like it any more than they did, and as we three walked up and down we heard him whining. And Alice kept saying, ‘I am so cold! Isn’t he coming yet?’ And H. O. wanted to come out and jump about to warm himself. But we told him he must learn to be a Spartan boy, and that he ought to be very thankful he hadn’t got a beastly fox eating his inside all the time. H. O. is our little brother, and we are not going to let it be our fault if he grows up a milksop. Besides, it was not really cold. It was his knees — he wears socks. So they stayed where they were. And at last, when even the other three who were walking about were beginning to feel rather chilly, we saw Lord Tottenham’s big black cloak coming along, flapping in the wind like a great bird. So we said to Alice —
‘Hist! he approaches. You’ll know when to set Pincher on by hearing Lord Tottenham talking to himself — he always does while he is taking off his collar.’