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 d.i.c.ky said, "Now, any more conscious objectors?"
And when no one replied he went on: "It was you saying "b.o.o.by-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, d.i.c.ky?"
"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 d.i.c.ky 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."
[Ill.u.s.tration: IT WAS RATHER DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING THE SHAPE OF A TURKEY.]
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 m.u.f.f-box of Dora"s done up very carefully and put at the bottom of the hamper. Inside the m.u.f.f-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.
d.i.c.ky wanted to write--"From an unknown friend," but we did not think that was fair, considering how d.i.c.ky felt.
So at last we put--"From one who does not wish to sign his name."
And that was true, at any rate.
d.i.c.ky 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 d.i.c.ky, 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 d.i.c.ky let it rise in his.
We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but d.i.c.ky said it was cheap for a high-cla.s.s 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 d.i.c.ky"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 d.i.c.ky was more deeply gloating than any one.
"I expect it"s got there by now," he said at dinner-time; "it"s a first cla.s.s b.o.o.by-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.
d.i.c.ky 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 d.i.c.ky 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 n.o.ble 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 d.i.c.ky, there"s an old aged man at the door inquiring if you live here."
So d.i.c.ky 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.