Part 13 (1/2)

And so on and so on, till some of us wondered why poetry was ever invented. But Mrs. Red House said she liked it awfully, so Noel said--

”You may have it to keep. I've got another one of it at home.”

”I'll put it next my heart, Noel,” she said. And she did, under the blue stuff and fur.

H.O.'s was last, but when we let him read it he wouldn't, so Dora opened his envelope and it was thick inside with blotting-paper, and in the middle there was a page with

”1066 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,”

and nothing else.

”Well,” he said, ”I said I'd write all I knew about 1066, and that's it.

I can't write more than I know, can I?” The girls said he couldn't, but Oswald thought he might have tried.

”It wasn't worth blacking your face all over just for that,” he said.

But Mrs. Red House laughed very much and said it was a lovely paper, and told _her_ all she wanted to know about 1066.

Then we went into the garden again and ran races, and Mrs. Red House held all our spectacles for us and cheered us on. She said she was the Patent Automatic Cheering Winning-post. We do like her.

Lunch was the glorious end of the Morden House Antiquarian Society and Field Club's Field Day. But after lunch was the beginning of a real adventure such as real antiquarians hardly ever get. This will be unrolled later. I will finish with some French out of a newspaper.

Albert's uncle told it me, so I know it is right. Any of your own grown-ups will tell you what it means.

_Au prochain numero je vous promets des emotions._

PS.--In case your grown-ups can't be bothered, ”_emotions_” mean sensation, I believe.

_THE INTREPID EXPLORER AND HIS LIEUTENANT_

WE had spectacles to play antiquaries in, and the rims were vaselined to prevent rust, and it came off on our faces with other kinds of dirt, and when the antiquary game was over, Mrs. Red House helped us to wash it off with all the thoroughness of aunts, and far more gentleness.

Then, clean and with our hairs brushed, we were led from the bath-room to the banqueting hall or dining-room.

It is a very beautiful house. The girls thought it was bare, but Oswald likes bareness because it leaves more room for games. All the furniture was of agreeable shapes and colours, and so were all the things on the table--gla.s.ses and dishes and everything. Oswald politely said how nice everything was.

The lunch was a blissful dream of perfect A.1.-ness. Tongue, and nuts, and apples, and oranges, and candied fruits, and ginger-wine in tiny gla.s.ses that Noel said were fairy goblets. Everybody drank everybody else's health--and Noel told Mrs. Red House just how lovely she was, and he would have paper and pencil and write her a poem for her very own. I will not put it in here, because Mr. Red House is an author himself, and he might want to use it in some of his books. And the writer of these pages has been taught to think of others, and besides I expect you are jolly well sick of Noel's poetry.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LUNCH WAS A BLISSFUL DREAM OF A.1.-NESS.]

There was no restrainingness about that lunch. As far as a married lady can possibly be a regular brick, Mrs. Red House is one. And Mr. Red House is not half bad, and knows how to talk about interesting things like sieges, and cricket, and foreign postage stamps.

Even poets think of things sometimes, and it was Noel who said directly he had finished his poetry,

”Have you got a secret staircase? And have you explored your house properly?”

”Yes--we have,” said that well-behaved and unusual lady--Mrs. Red House, ”but _you_ haven't. You may if you like. Go anywhere,” she added with the unexpected magnificence of a really n.o.ble heart. ”Look at everything--only don't make hay. Off with you!” or words to that effect.

And the whole of us, with proper thanks, offed with us instantly, in case she should change her mind.