"Please, what were you doing in Dover? And what did you take yesterday?"
"I was in Dover on business," said the man, "and what I took was Hythe Church and Burmarsh Church, and----"
"Then you didn"t steal a cake and get put into Dover Gaol, and break loose, and----" said d.i.c.ky, though I kicked him as a sign not to.
"_Me?_" said our friend. "Not exactly!"
"Then, _what_ are you? If you"re not that poor escaped thief, what are you?" asked Dora fiercely, before Oswald could stop her.
"I"m a photographer, miss," said he--"a travelling photographer."
Then slowly but surely he saw it all, and I thought he would never have done laughing.
"Breakfast is getting cold," said Oswald.
"So it is," said our guest. "Lordy, what a go! This"ll be something to talk about between friends for many a year."
"No," said Alice suddenly; "we thought you were a runaway thief, and we wanted to help you whatever you were." She pointed to the sofa, where the whole costume of the untrue aunt was lying in simple completeness.
"And you"re in honour bound never to tell a soul. Think," she added in persuading tones--"think of the cold bacon and the cheese, and all those pickles you had, and the fire and the cocoa, and us being up all night, and the dry all-wool boots."
"Say no more, miss," said the photographer (for such he indeed was) n.o.bly. "Your will is my law; I won"t never breathe a word."
And he sat down to the ham and eggs as though it was weeks since he had tasted bacon.
But we found out afterwards he went straight up to the Ship, and told everybody all about it. I wonder whether all photographers are dishonourable and ungrateful. Oswald hopes they are not, but he cannot feel at all sure.
Lots of people chaffed us about it afterwards, but the pigman said we were jolly straight young Britons, and it is something to be called that by a man you really respect. It doesn"t matter so much what the other people say--the people you don"t really care about.
When we told our Indian uncle about it he said, "Nonsense! you ought never to try and shield a criminal." But that was not at all the way we felt about it at the time when the criminal was there (or we thought he was), all wet, and hunted, and miserable, with people "out after him."
He meant his friends who were expecting him, but we thought he meant police. It is very hard sometimes to know exactly what is right. If what _feels_ right _isn"t_ right, how are you to know, I wonder.
The only comforting thing about it all is that we heard next day that the soldiers had got away from the brown bicycle beast after all. I suppose it came home to them suddenly that they _were_ two to one, and they shoved him into a ditch and got away. They were never caught; I am very glad. And I suppose _that"s_ wrong too--so many things are. But I _am_.
THE a.r.s.eNICATORS
A TALE OF CRIME
It was Mrs. Beale who put it into our heads that Miss Sandal lived plain because she was poor. We knew she thought high, because that is what you jolly well have to do if you are a vegetationist and an all-wooler, and those sort of things.
And we tried to get money for her, like we had once tried to do for ourselves. And we succeeded by means that have been told alone in another place in getting two golden pounds.
Then, of course, we began to wonder what we had better do with the two pounds now we had got them.
"Put them in the savings-bank," Dora said.
Alice said:
"Why, when we could have them to look at?"
Noel thought we ought to buy her something beautiful to adorn Miss Sandal"s bare dwelling.
H. O. thought we might spend it on nice tinned and potted things from the stores, to make the plain living and high thinking go down better.
But Oswald knew that, however nice the presents are that other people buy for you, it is really more satisfying to have the c.h.i.n.k to spend exactly as you like.
Then d.i.c.ky said:
"I don"t believe in letting money lie idle. Father always says it"s bad business."
"They give interest at the bank, don"t they?" Dora said.
"Yes; tuppence a year, or some rot like that! We ought to go into trade with it, and try to make more of it. That"s what we ought to do."
"If it"s Miss Sandal"s money, do you think we ought to do anything with it without asking her?"
"It isn"t hers till she"s got it, and it is hers because it"s not ours to spend. I think we"re--what is it?--_in loco parentis_ to that two quid, because anyone can see poor Miss Sandal doesn"t know how to manage her money. And it will be much better if we give her ten pounds than just two."
This is how d.i.c.ky argued.
We were sitting on the sands when this council took place, and Alice said, "Suppose we bought a shrimping-net, and sold shrimps from our window in red handkerchiefs and white French caps." But we asked her how she would like going into the sea nearly up to her neck in all weathers, and she had to own she had not thought of that. Besides, shrimps are so beastly cheap--more than you can eat for twopence.
The conversation was not interesting to anyone but d.i.c.ky, because we did not then believe we could do it, though later we thought differently.
But I dare say we should have gone on with it just out of politeness to him, only at this moment we saw a coastguard, who is a great friend of ours, waving to us from the sea-wall. So we went up. And he said:
"You take my tip and cut along home. There"s something come for you."
"Perhaps it"s heaps of things, like I said, to eat with the plain living," said H. O.
And bright visions of hampers full of the most superior tuck winged our young legs as we cut along home.
It was not, however, a hamper that we found awaiting us. It was a large box. And besides that there were two cases addressed to d.i.c.ky and me, and through the gaps in the boards we could see twisted straw, and our hearts leapt high in our b.r.e.a.s.t.s, because we knew that they were bikes.
And such, indeed, they proved to be--free-wheels of the most unspotted character, the n.o.ble gift of our Indian uncle, ever amiable, generous, and esteemed.
While we were getting the glorious bikes from their prison bars, the others were undoing the box which had their names on it.
It contained cakes and sweets, a work-basket for Dora, lined with red satin, and dressed up with silver thimbles, and all sorts of bodkins and scissors, and knives with silver handles. There was a lovely box of paints for Alice.
Noel had a paint-box too, and H. O. had a very good Aunt Sally. And there were lots of books--not the sawdusty, dry kind that Miss Sandal had in her house, but jolly good books, the kind you can"t put down till you"ve finished. But just now we hardly looked at them. For who with a spark of manly spirit would think twice about a book with a new free-wheel champing the oil like a charger in a ballad?