[Ill.u.s.tration: WITH SCISSORS AND GAS PLIERS THEY CUT EVERY FUSE.]
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 d.i.c.k"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 d.i.c.ky would have known at once; if Noel and H.O.
hadn"t been so c.o.c.ky 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 G.o.d-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-cla.s.s 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 d.i.c.ky 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 d.i.c.ky and Oswald.
"You don"t come that over us twice," d.i.c.ky 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 d.i.c.ky always on to me and call it teaching."
"We might call the society the Would-be-Wisers," said Oswald hastily.