The Greatest Works of E. Nesbit (220+ Titles in One Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит
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Название: The Greatest Works of E. Nesbit (220+ Titles in One Illustrated Edition)

Автор: Эдит Несбит

Издательство: Bookwire

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isbn: 9788027221431

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 muff-box of Dora's done up very carefully and put at the bottom of the hamper. Inside the muff-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.

      Dicky wanted to write—"From an unknown friend," but we did not think that was fair, considering how Dicky felt.

      So at last we put—"From one who does not wish to sign his name."

      And that was true, at any rate.

      Dicky 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 Dicky, 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 Dicky let it rise in his.

      We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but Dicky said it was cheap for a high-class 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 Dicky'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 Dicky was more deeply gloating than any one.

      "I expect it's got there by now," he said at dinner-time; "it's a first class booby-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 Noël 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 Noël 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.

      Dicky 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 Noël was crying and wouldn't have any more dinner. Alice spoke in the eloquent language of the human eye and begged Dicky 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 Noël 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 noble 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 Dicky, there's an old aged man at the door inquiring if you live here."

      So Dicky 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.

      But it was not the shoemaker. It was an old man, pale in the face and white in the hair, and he was so old that we asked him into Father's study by the fire, as soon as we had found out it was really Dicky he wanted to see.

      When we got him there he said—

      "Might I trouble you to shut the door?"

      This is the way a burglar or a murderer might behave, but we did not think he was one. He looked too old for these professions.

      When the door was shut, he said—

      "I ain't got much to say, young gemmen. It's only to ask was it you sent this?"

      He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it was our list. Oswald and Dicky looked at each other.

      "Did you send it?" said the old man again.

      So then Dicky shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yes."

      Oswald said, "How did you know and who are you?"

      The old man got whiter than ever. He pulled out a piece of paper—it was the greenish-grey piece we'd wrapped the Turk and chains in. And it had a label on it that we hadn't noticed, with Dicky's name and address on it. The new bat he got at Christmas had come in it.

      image WHEN THE DOOR WAS SHUT HE SAID, "I AIN'T GOT MUCH TO SAY, YOUNG GEMMEN."

      "That's how I know," said the old man. "Ah, be sure your sin will find you out."

      "But who are you, anyway!" asked Oswald again.

      "Oh, I ain't nobody in particular," he said. "I'm only the father of the pore gell as you took in with your cruel, deceitful, lying tricks. Oh, you may look uppish, young sir, but I'm here to speak my mind, and I'll speak it if I die for it. So now!"

      "But we didn't send it to a girl," said Dicky. "We wouldn't do such a thing. We sent it for a—for a——" I think he tried to say for a joke, but he couldn't with the fiery way the old man looked at him—"for a sell, to pay a porter out for stopping me getting into a train when it was just starting, and I missed going to the Circus with the others." Oswald was glad Dicky was not too proud to explain to the old man. He was rather afraid he might be.

      "I СКАЧАТЬ