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      "Let's go and have another look at that cellar."

      The other—whoever it was—foolishly consented. So they went, and they took Oswald's dark-lantern in his absence and without his leave.

      They found a hitherto unnoticed door behind the other one, and Noël says he said, "We'd better not go in." H.O. says he said so too. But any way, they did go in.

      They found themselves in a small vaulted place that we found out afterwards had been used for mushrooms. But it was long since any fair bud of a mushroom had blossomed in that dark retreat. The place had been cleaned and new shelves put up, and when Noël and H.O. saw what was on these shelves the author is sure they turned pale, though they say not.

      For what they saw was coils, and pots, and wires; and one of them said, in a voice that must have trembled—

      "It is dynamite, I am certain of it; what shall we do?"

      I am certain the other said, "This is to blow up Father because he took part in the Lewisham Election, and his side won."

      The reply no doubt was, "There is no time for delay; we must act. We must cut the fuse—all the fuses; there are dozens."

      Oswald thinks it was not half bad business, those two kids—for Noël is little more than one, owing to his poetry and his bronchitis—standing in the abode of dynamite and not screeching, or running off to tell Miss Blake, or the servants, or any one—but just doing the right thing without any fuss.

       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 Dick'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 Noël 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 Dicky would have known at once; if Noël and H.O. hadn't been so cocky 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 Noël 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, Noël 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 Noël 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 god-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-class 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

       Table of Contents

      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 Dicky replied: "Well, what about it?"

      So then Oswald explained all over again that we had been Treasure Seekers, СКАЧАТЬ