Part 20 (2/2)
”PSS.--Italian spelling, of course.”
”And now,” cried Oswald, ”I see it all!”
The others didn't. They often don't when Oswald does.
”Why, don't you see!” he patiently explained, for he knows that it is vain to be angry with people because they are not so clever as--as other people. ”It's the direct aspiration of Fate. He wants it, does he? Well, he shall have it!”
”What?” said everybody.
”We'll be it.”
”_What?_” was the not very polite remark now repeated by all.
”Why, his discerning public.”
And still they all remained quite blind to what was so clear to Oswald, the astute and discernful.
”It will be much more useful than killing dragons,” Oswald went on, ”especially as there aren't any; and it will be a really truly wedding present--just what we were wis.h.i.+ng we'd given him.”
The five others now fell on Oswald and rolled him under the table and sat on his head so that he had to speak loudly and plainly.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FIVE OTHERS]
”All right! I'll tell you--in words of one syllable if you like. Let go, I say!” And when he had rolled out with the others and the tablecloth that caught on H.O.'s boots and the books and Dora's workbox, and the gla.s.s of paint-water that came down with it, he said--
”We will _be_ the public. We will all write to the editor of the _People's Pageant_ and tell him what we think about the Geraldine chapter. Do mop up that water, Dora; it's running all under where I'm sitting.”
”Don't you think,” said Dora, devoting her handkerchief and Alice's in the obedient way she does not always use, ”that six letters, all signed 'Bastable,' and all coming from the same house, would be rather--rather----”
”A bit too thick? Yes,” said Alice; ”but of course we'd have all different names and addresses.”
”We might as well do it thoroughly,” said d.i.c.ky, ”and send three or four different letters each.”
”And have them posted in different parts of London. Right oh!” remarked Oswald.
”_I_ shall write a piece of poetry for mine,” said Noel.
”They ought all to be on different kinds of paper,” said Oswald. ”Let's go out and get the paper directly after tea.”
We did, but we could only get fifteen different kinds of paper and envelopes, though we went to every shop in the village.
At the first shop, when we said, ”Please we want a penn'orth of paper and envelopes of each of all the different kinds you keep,” the lady of the shop looked at us thinly over blue-rimmed spectacles and said, ”What for?”
And H.O. said, ”To write unonymous letters.”
”Anonymous letters are very wrong,” the lady said, and she wouldn't sell us any paper at all.
But at the other places we did not say what it was for, and they sold it us. There were bluey and yellowy and grey and white kinds, and some was violetish with violets on it, and some pink, with roses. The girls took the florivorous ones, which Oswald thinks are unmanly for any but girls, but you excuse their using it. It seems natural to them to mess about like that.
<script>