by Edith Nesbit
Then we three walked slowly away whistling to show we were not thinking of anything. Our lips were rather cold, but we managed to do it.
Lord Tottenham came striding along, talking to himself. People call him the mad Protectionist. I don’t know what it means — but I don’t think people ought to call a Lord such names.
As he passed us he said, ‘Ruin of the country, sir! Fatal error, fatal error!’ And then we looked back and saw he was getting quite near where Pincher was, and Alice and H. O. We walked on — so that he shouldn’t think we were looking — and in a minute we heard Pincher’s bark, and then nothing for a bit; and then we looked round, and sure enough good old Pincher had got Lord Tottenham by the trouser leg and was holding on like billy-ho, so we started to run.
Lord Tottenham had got his collar half off — it was sticking out sideways under his ear — and he was shouting, ‘Help, help, murder!’ exactly as if some one had explained to him beforehand what he was to do. Pincher was growling and snarling and holding on. When we got to him I stopped and said —
‘Dicky, we must rescue this good old man.’
Lord Tottenham roared in his fury, ‘Good old man be—’ something or othered. ‘Call the dog off.’
So Oswald said, ‘It is a dangerous task — but who would hesitate to do an act of true bravery?’
And all the while Pincher was worrying and snarling, and Lord Tottenham shouting to us to get the dog away. He was dancing about in the road with Pincher hanging on like grim death; and his collar flapping about, where it was undone.
Then Noel said, ‘Haste, ere yet it be too late.’ So I said to Lord Tottenham —
‘Stand still, aged sir, and I will endeavour to alleviate your distress.’
He stood still, and I stooped down and caught hold of Pincher and whispered, ‘Drop it, sir; drop it!’
So then Pincher dropped it, and Lord Tottenham fastened his collar again — he never does change it if there’s any one looking — and he said —
‘I’m much obliged, I’m sure. Nasty vicious brute! Here’s something to drink my health.’
But Dicky explained that we are teetotallers, and do not drink people’s healths. So Lord Tottenham said, ‘Well, I’m much obliged any way. And now I come to look at you — of course, you’re not young ruffians, but gentlemen’s sons, eh? Still, you won’t be above taking a tip from an old boy — I wasn’t when I was your age,’ and he pulled out half a sovereign.
It was very silly; but now we’d done it I felt it would be beastly mean to take the old boy’s chink after putting him in such a funk. He didn’t say anything about bringing us up as his own sons — so I didn’t know what to do. I let Pincher go, and was just going to say he was very welcome, and we’d rather not have the money, which seemed the best way out of it, when that beastly dog spoiled the whole show. Directly I let him go he began to jump about at us and bark for joy, and try to lick our faces. He was so proud of what he’d done. Lord Tottenham opened his eyes and he just said, ‘The dog seems to know you.’
And then Oswald saw it was all up, and he said, ‘Good morning,’ and tried to get away. But Lord Tottenham said —
‘Not so fast!’ And he caught Noel by the collar. Noel gave a howl, and Alice ran out from the bushes. Noel is her favourite. I’m sure I don’t know why. Lord Tottenham looked at her, and he said —
‘So there are more of you!’ And then H. O. came out.
‘Do you complete the party?’ Lord Tottenham asked him. And H. O. said there were only five of us this time.
Lord Tottenham turned sharp off and began to walk away, holding Noel by the collar. We caught up with him, and asked him where he was going, and he said, ‘To the Police Station.’ So then I said quite politely, ‘Well, don’t take Noel; he’s not strong, and he easily gets upset. Besides, it wasn’t his doing. If you want to take any one take me — it was my very own idea.’
Dicky behaved very well. He said, ‘If you take Oswald I’ll go too, but don’t take Noel; he’s such a delicate little chap.’
Lord Tottenham stopped, and he said, ‘You should have thought of that before.’ Noel was howling all the time, and his face was very white, and Alice said —
‘Oh, do let Noel go, dear, good, kind Lord Tottenham; he’ll faint if you don’t, I know he will, he does sometimes. Oh, I wish we’d never done it! Dora said it was wrong.’
‘Dora displayed considerable common sense,’ said Lord Tottenham, and he let Noel go. And Alice put her arm round Noel and tried to cheer him up, but he was all trembly, and as white as paper.
Then Lord Tottenham said —
‘Will you give me your word of honour not to try to escape?’
So we said we would.
‘Then follow me,’ he said, and led the way to a bench. We all followed, and Pincher too, with his tail between his legs — he knew something was wrong. Then Lord Tottenham sat down, and he made Oswald and Dicky and H. O. stand in front of him, but he let Alice and Noel sit down. And he said —
‘You set your dog on me, and you tried to make me believe you were saving me from it. And you would have taken my half-sovereign. Such conduct is most — No — you shall tell me what it is, sir, and speak the truth.’
So I had to say it was most ungentlemanly, but I said I hadn’t been going to take the half-sovereign.
‘Then what did you do it for?’ he asked. ‘The truth, mind.’
So I said, ‘I see now it was very silly, and Dora said it was wrong, but it didn’t seem so till we did it. We wanted to restore the fallen fortunes of our house, and in the books if you rescue an old gentleman from deadly peril, he brings you up as his own son — or if you prefer to be your father’s son, he starts you in business, so that you end in wealthy affluence; and there wasn’t any deadly peril, so we made Pincher into one — and so—’ I was so ashamed I couldn’t go on, for it did seem an awfully mean thing. Lord Tottenham said —
‘A very nice way to make your fortune — by deceit and trickery. I have a horror of dogs. If I’d been a weak man the shock might have killed me. What do you think of yourselves, eh?’
We were all crying except Oswald, and the others say he was; and Lord Tottenham went on—’Well, well, I see you’re sorry. Let this be a lesson to you; and we’ll say no more about it. I’m an old man now, but I was young once.’
Then Alice slid along the bench close to him, and put her hand on his arm: her fingers were pink through the holes in her woolly gloves, and said, ‘I think you’re very good to forgive us, and we are really very, very sorry. But we wanted to be like the children in the books — only we never have the chances they have. Everything they do turns out all right. But we are sorry, very, very. And I know Oswald wasn’t going to take the half-sovereign. Directly you said that about a tip from an old boy I began to feel bad inside, and I whispered to H. O. that I wished we hadn’t.’
Then Lord Tottenham stood up, and he looked like the Death of Nelson, for he is clean shaved and it is a good face, and he said —
‘Always remember never to do a dishonourable thing, for money or for anything else in the world.’
And we promised we would remember. Then he took off his hat, and we took off ours, and he went away, and we went home. I never felt so cheap in all my life! Dora said, ‘I told you so,’ but we didn’t mind even that so much, though it was indeed hard to bear. It was what Lord Tottenham had said about ungentlemanly. We didn’t go on to the Heath for a week after that; but at last we all went, and we waited for him by the bench. When he came along Alice said, ‘Please, Lord Tottenham, we have not been on the Heath for a week, to be a punishment because you let us off. And we have brought you a present each if you will take them to show you are willing to make it up.’
He sat down on the bench, and we gave him our presents. Oswald gave him a sixpenny compass — he bought it with my own money on purpose to give him. Oswald always buys useful presents. The needle would not move after I’d had it a day or two, but Lord Tottenham used to be an admiral, so he wi
ll be able to make that go all right. Alice had made him a shaving-case, with a rose worked on it. And H. O. gave him his knife — the same one he once cut all the buttons off his best suit with. Dicky gave him his prize, Naval Heroes, because it was the best thing he had, and Noel gave him a piece of poetry he had made himself —
When sin and shame bow down the brow
Then people feel just like we do now.
We are so sorry with grief and pain
We never will be so ungentlemanly again.
Lord Tottenham seemed very pleased. He thanked us, and talked to us for a bit, and when he said good-bye he said —
‘All’s fair weather now, mates,’ and shook hands.
And whenever we meet him he nods to us, and if the girls are with us he takes off his hat, so he can’t really be going on thinking us ungentlemanly now.
CHAPTER 11. CASTILIAN AMOROSO
One day when we suddenly found that we had half a crown we decided that we really ought to try Dicky’s way of restoring our fallen fortunes while yet the deed was in our power. Because it might easily have happened to us never to have half a crown again. So we decided to dally no longer with being journalists and bandits and things like them, but to send for sample and instructions how to earn two pounds a week each in our spare time. We had seen the advertisement in the paper, and we had always wanted to do it, but we had never had the money to spare before, somehow. The advertisement says: ‘Any lady or gentleman can easily earn two pounds a week in their spare time. Sample and instructions, two shillings. Packed free from observation.’ A good deal of the half-crown was Dora’s. It came from her godmother; but she said she would not mind letting Dicky have it if he would pay her back before Christmas, and if we were sure it was right to try to make our fortune that way. Of course that was quite easy, because out of two pounds a week in your spare time you can easily pay all your debts, and have almost as much left as you began with; and as to the right we told her to dry up.
Dicky had always thought that this was really the best way to restore our fallen fortunes, and we were glad that now he had a chance of trying because of course we wanted the two pounds a week each, and besides, we were rather tired of Dicky’s always saying, when our ways didn’t turn out well, ‘Why don’t you try the sample and instructions about our spare time?’
When we found out about our half-crown we got the paper. Noel was playing admirals in it, but he had made the cocked hat without tearing the paper, and we found the advertisement, and it said just the same as ever. So we got a two-shilling postal order and a stamp, and what was left of the money it was agreed we would spend in ginger-beer to drink success to trade.
We got some nice paper out of Father’s study, and Dicky wrote the letter, and we put in the money and put on the stamp, and made H. O. post it. Then we drank the ginger-beer, and then we waited for the sample and instructions. It seemed a long time coming, and the postman got quite tired of us running out and stopping him in the street to ask if it had come.
But on the third morning it came. It was quite a large parcel, and it was packed, as the advertisement said it would be, ‘free from observation.’ That means it was in a box; and inside the box was some stiff browny cardboard, crinkled like the galvanized iron on the tops of chicken-houses, and inside that was a lot of paper, some of it printed and some scrappy, and in the very middle of it all a bottle, not very large, and black, and sealed on the top of the cork with yellow sealing-wax.
We looked at it as it lay on the nursery table, and while all the others grabbed at the papers to see what the printing said, Oswald went to look for the corkscrew, so as to see what was inside the bottle. He found the corkscrew in the dresser drawer — it always gets there, though it is supposed to be in the sideboard drawer in the dining-room — and when he got back the others had read most of the printed papers.
‘I don’t think it’s much good, and I don’t think it’s quite nice to sell wine,’ Dora said ‘and besides, it’s not easy to suddenly begin to sell things when you aren’t used to it.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Alice; ‘I believe I could.’ They all looked rather down in the mouth, though, and Oswald asked how you were to make your two pounds a week.
‘Why, you’ve got to get people to taste that stuff in the bottle. It’s sherry — Castilian Amoroso its name is — and then you get them to buy it, and then you write to the people and tell them the other people want the wine, and then for every dozen you sell you get two shillings from the wine people, so if you sell twenty dozen a week you get your two pounds. I don’t think we shall sell as much as that,’ said Dicky.
‘We might not the first week,’ Alice said, ‘but when people found out how nice it was, they would want more and more. And if we only got ten shillings a week it would be something to begin with, wouldn’t it?’
Oswald said he should jolly well think it would, and then Dicky took the cork out with the corkscrew. The cork broke a good deal, and some of the bits went into the bottle. Dora got the medicine glass that has the teaspoons and tablespoons marked on it, and we agreed to have a teaspoonful each, to see what it was like.
‘No one must have more than that,’ Dora said, ‘however nice it is.’
Dora behaved rather as if it were her bottle. I suppose it was, because she had lent the money for it.
Then she measured out the teaspoonful, and she had first go, because of being the eldest. We asked at once what it was like, but Dora could not speak just then.
Then she said, ‘It’s like the tonic Noel had in the spring; but perhaps sherry ought to be like that.’
Then it was Oswald’s turn. He thought it was very burny; but he said nothing. He wanted to see first what the others would say.
Dicky said his was simply beastly, and Alice said Noel could taste next if he liked.
Noel said it was the golden wine of the gods, but he had to put his handkerchief up to his mouth all the same, and I saw the face he made.
Then H. O. had his, and he spat it out in the fire, which was very rude and nasty, and we told him so.
Then it was Alice’s turn. She said, ‘Only half a teaspoonful for me, Dora. We mustn’t use it all up.’ And she tasted it and said nothing.
Then Dicky said: ‘Look here, I chuck this. I’m not going to hawk round such beastly stuff. Any one who likes can have the bottle. Quis?’
And Alice got out ‘Ego’ before the rest of us. Then she said, ‘I know what’s the matter with it. It wants sugar.’
And at once we all saw that that was all there was the matter with the stuff. So we got two lumps of sugar and crushed it on the floor with one of the big wooden bricks till it was powdery, and mixed it with some of the wine up to the tablespoon mark, and it was quite different, and not nearly so nasty.
‘You see it’s all right when you get used to it,’ Dicky said. I think he was sorry he had said ‘Quis?’ in such a hurry.
‘Of course,’ Alice said, ‘it’s rather dusty. We must crush the sugar carefully in clean paper before we put it in the bottle.’
Dora said she was afraid it would be cheating to make one bottle nicer than what people would get when they ordered a dozen bottles, but Alice said Dora always made a fuss about everything, and really it would be quite honest.
‘You see,’ she said, ‘I shall just tell them, quite truthfully, what we have done to it, and when their dozens come they can do it for themselves.’
So then we crushed eight more lumps, very cleanly and carefully between newspapers, and shook it up well in the bottle, and corked it up with a screw of paper, brown and not news, for fear of the poisonous printing ink getting wet and dripping down into the wine and killing people. We made Pincher have a taste, and he sneezed for ever so long, and after that he used to go under the sofa whenever we showed him the bottle.
Then we asked Alice who she would try and sell it to. She said: ‘I shall ask everybody who comes to the house. And while we are doing that, we can be thinking of outside people to
take it to. We must be careful: there’s not much more than half of it left, even counting the sugar.’
We did not wish to tell Eliza — I don’t know why. And she opened the door very quickly that day, so that the Taxes and a man who came to our house by mistake for next door got away before Alice had a chance to try them with the Castilian Amoroso. But about five Eliza slipped out for half an hour to see a friend who was making her a hat for Sunday, and while she was gone there was a knock. Alice went, and we looked over the banisters. When she opened the door, she said at once, ‘Will you walk in, please?’ The person at the door said, ‘I called to see your Pa, miss. Is he at home?’
Alice said again, ‘Will you walk in, please?’
Then the person — it sounded like a man — said, ‘He is in, then?’
But Alice only kept on saying, ‘Will you walk in, please?’ so at last the man did, rubbing his boots very loudly on the mat.
Then Alice shut the front door, and we saw that it was the butcher, with an envelope in his hand. He was not dressed in blue, like when he is cutting up the sheep and things in the shop, and he wore knickerbockers. Alice says he came on a bicycle. She led the way into the dining-room, where the Castilian Amoroso bottle and the medicine glass were standing on the table all ready.
The others stayed on the stairs, but Oswald crept down and looked through the door-crack.
‘Please sit down,’ said Alice quite calmly, though she told me afterwards I had no idea how silly she felt. And the butcher sat down. Then Alice stood quite still and said nothing, but she fiddled with the medicine glass and put the screw of brown paper straight in the Castilian bottle.
‘Will you tell your Pa I’d like a word with him?’ the butcher said, when he got tired of saying nothing.
‘He’ll be in very soon, I think,’ Alice said.
And then she stood still again and said nothing. It was beginning to look very idiotic of her, and H. O. laughed. I went back and cuffed him for it quite quietly, and I don’t think the butcher heard.