Everyone clapped very much, but Noel was so upset he nearly cried, and Mrs. Leslie said:
"Noel, I"m feeling as pale as a lily again! Take me round the garden to recover myself."
She was as red as usual, but it saved Noel from making a young a.s.s of himself. And we got seventeen shillings and sixpence by his reciting. So that was all right.
We might as well not have sent out those circulars, because only the people we had written to ourselves came. Of course, I don"t count those five street boys, the same Oswald had the sandwich-board fight with.
They came, and they walked round and looked at the things; but they had no money to spend, it turned out, and only came to be disagreeable and make fun. So Albert"s uncle asked them if they did not think their families would be lonely without them, and he and I saw them off at the gate. Then they stood outside and made rude noises. And another stranger came, and Oswald thought perhaps the circular was beginning to bear fruit. But the stranger asked for the master of the house, and he was shown in. Oswald was just shaking up the numbers in his hat for the lottery of the Goat, and Alice and Dora were selling the tickets for half a crown each to our visitors, and explaining the dreadful misery of the poor man that all this trouble was being taken for, and we were all enjoying ourselves very much, when Sarah came to say Master Oswald was to go in to master"s study at once. So he went, wondering what on earth he could have been up to now. But he could not think of anything in particular. But when his father said, "Oswald, this gentleman is a detective from Scotland Yard," he was glad he had told about the fives ball and the ladder, because he knew his father would now stand by him.
But he did wonder whether you could be sent to prison for leaving a ladder in a slippery place, and how long they would keep you there for that crime.
Then my father held out one of the fatal circulars, and said:
"I suppose this is some of your work? Mr. Biggs here is bound in honour to do his best to find out when people break the laws of the land. Now, lotteries are illegal, and can be punished by law."
Oswald gloomily wondered how much the law could do to you. He said:
"We didn"t know, father."
Then his father said:
"The best thing you can do is to tell this gentleman all about it."
So Oswald said:
"Augustus Victor Plunkett fell off a ladder and broke his arm, and perhaps it was our fault for meddling with the ladder at all. So we wanted to do something to help him, and father said we might have a bazaar. It is happening now, and we had three pounds two and sevenpence last time I counted the bazaar."
"But what about the lottery?" said Mr. Biggs, who did not look as if he would take Oswald to prison just then, as our young hero had feared. In fact, he looked rather jolly. "Is the prize money?"
"No--oh no; only it"s so valuable it"s as good as winning money."
"Then it"s only a raffle," said Mr. Biggs; "that"s what it is, just a plain raffle. What _is_ the prize?"
"Are we to be allowed to go on with it?" asked the wary Oswald.
"Why, yes," said Mr. Biggs; "if it"s not money, why not? What is the valuable object?"
"Come, Oswald," said his father, when Oswald said nothing, "what is the object of _virtu_?"
"I"d rather not say," said Oswald, feeling very uncomfortable.
Mr. Biggs said something about duty being duty, and my father said:
"Come, Oswald, don"t be a young duffer. I dare say it"s nothing to be ashamed of."
"I should think not indeed," said Oswald, as his fond thoughts played with that beautiful Goat.
"Well, then?"
"Well, sir"--Oswald spoke desperately, for he wondered his father had been so patient so long, and saw that he wasn"t going to go on being--"you see, the great thing is, n.o.body is to know it"s a G---- I mean, it"s a secret. No one"s to know what the prize is. Only when you"ve won it, it will be revealed."
"Well," said my father, "if Mr. Biggs will take a gla.s.s of wine with me, we"ll follow you down to the greenhouse, and he can see for himself."
Mr. Biggs said something about thanking father kindly, and about his duty. And presently they came down to the greenhouse. Father did not introduce Mr. Biggs to anyone--I suppose he forgot--but Oswald did while father was talking to Mrs. Leslie. And Mr. Biggs made himself very agreeable to all the ladies.
Then we had the lottery. Everyone had tickets, and Alice asked Mr. Biggs to buy one. She let him have it for a shilling, because it was the last, and we all hoped he would win the Goat. He seemed quite sure now that Oswald was not kidding, and that the prize was not money. Indeed, Oswald went so far as to tell him privately that the prize was too big to put in your pocket, and that if it was divided up it would be spoiled, which is true of Goats, but not of money.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""Here is your prize," said Oswald."--Page 31.]
Everyone was laughing and talking, and wondering anxiously whatever the prize could possibly be. Oswald carried round the hat, and everyone drew a number. The winning number was six hundred and sixty-six, and Albert"s uncle said afterwards it was a curious coincidence. I don"t know what it meant, but it made Mrs. Leslie laugh. When everyone had drawn a number, Oswald rang the dinner-bell to command silence, and there was a hush full of anxious expectation. Then Oswald said:
"The prize number is six hundred and sixty-six. Who has it?"
And Mr. Biggs took a step forward and held out his paper.
"The prize is yours! I congratulate you," said Oswald warmly.
Then he went into the stovehouse, and hastily placing a wreath of paper roses on the Goat"s head, that Alice had got ready for the purpose, he got out the Goat by secretly showing it a bit of cocoanut ice, and led it by the same means to the feet of the happy winner.
"Here is your prize," said Oswald, with feelings of generous pride. "I am very glad you"ve got him. He"ll be a comfort to you, and make up for all the trouble you"ve had over our lottery--raffle, I mean."
And he placed the ungoated end of the rope in the unresisting hand of the fortunate detective.
Neither Oswald nor any of the rest of us has ever been able to make out why everyone should have laughed so. But they did. They said the lottery was the success of the afternoon. And the ladies kept on congratulating Mr. Biggs.
At last people began to go, and the detective, so unexpectedly made rich beyond his wildest dreams, said he, too, must be going. He had tied the Goat to the greenhouse door, and now he moved away. But we all cried out:
"You"ve forgotten your Goat!"
"No, I haven"t," he said very earnestly; "I shall never forget that Goat to my dying hour. But I want to call on my aunt just close by, and I couldn"t very well take the Goat to see her."
"I don"t see why not," H. O. said; "it"s a very nice Goat."
"She"s frightened of them," said he. "One ran at her when she was a little girl. But if you will allow me, sir"--and he winked at my father, which is not manners--"if you"ll allow me, I"ll call in for the Goat on my way to the station."
We got five pounds thirteen and fivepence by the bazaar and the raffle.
We should have had another ten shillings from father, but he had to give it to Mr. Biggs, because we had put him to the trouble of coming all the way from Scotland Yard, because he thought our circular was from some hardened criminal wishing to cheat his trustful fellow-creatures.
We took the money to Augustus Victor Plunkett next morning, and I tell you he _was_ pleased.
We waited till long after dark for the detective to return for his rich prize. But he never came. I hope he was not set upon and stabbed in some dark alley. If he is alive, and not imprisoned, I can"t see why he didn"t come back. I often think anxiously of him. Because, of course, detectives have many enemies among felons, who think nothing of stabbing people in the back, so that being murdered in a dark alley is a thing all detectives are constantly liable to.
THE RUNAWAYS
It was after we had had the measles, that fell and blighting disorder which we got from Alice picking up five deeply infected shillings that a bemeasled family had wrapped in a bit of paper to pay the doctor with and then carelessly dropped in the street. Alice held the packet hotly in her m.u.f.f all through a charity concert. Hence these tears, as it says in Virgil. And if you have ever had measles you will know that this is not what is called figuring speech, because your eyes do run like mad all the time.
When we were unmeasled again we were sent to stay at Lymchurch with a Miss Sandal, and her motto was plain living and high thinking. She had a brother, and his motto was the same, and it was his charity concert that Alice held the fatal shillings in her m.u.f.f throughout of. Later on he was giving tracts to a bricklayer, and fell off a scaffold in his giddy earnestness, and Miss Sandal had to go and nurse him. So the six of us stayed in the plain living, high thinking house by ourselves, and old Mrs. Beale from the village came in every day and did the housework. She was of humble birth, but was a true lady in minding her own affairs, which is what a great many ladies do not know how to do at all. We had no lessons to do, and we were thus free to attend to any adventures which came along. Adventures are the real business of life. The rest is only in-betweenness--what Albert"s uncle calls padding. He is an author.