Part 24 (1/2)

Beale to wait on him.”

So we decided to do this. We thought a pound a room seemed fair.

And we went back.

”How many rooms do you want?” Oswald asked.

”All the room there is,” said the gentleman.

”They are a pound each,” said Oswald, ”and extra for Mrs. Beale.”

”How much altogether?”

Oswald thought a minute and then said ”Nine rooms is nine pounds, and two pounds a week for Mrs. Beale, because she is a widow.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”HOW MUCH?” SAID THE GENTLEMAN SHORTLY.]

”Done!” said the gentleman. ”I'll go and fetch my portmanteaus.”

He bounced up and out and got into his carriage and drove away. It was not till he was finally gone quite beyond recall that Alice suddenly said--

”But if he has all the rooms where are _we_ to sleep?”

”He must be awfully rich,” said H.O., ”wanting all those rooms.”

”Well, he can't sleep in more than one at once,” said d.i.c.ky, ”however rich he is. We might wait till he was bedded down and then sleep in the rooms he didn't want.”

But Oswald was firm. He knew that if the man paid for the rooms he must have them to himself.

”He won't sleep in the kitchen,” said Dora; ”couldn't we sleep there?”

But we all said we couldn't and wouldn't.

Then Alice suddenly said--

”I know! The Mill. There are heaps and heaps of fis.h.i.+ng-nets there, and we could each take a blanket like Indians and creep over under cover of the night after the Beale has gone, and get back before she comes in the morning.”

It seemed a sporting thing to do, and we agreed. Only Dora said she thought it would be draughty.

Of course we went over to the Mill at once to lay our plans and prepare for the silent watches of the night.

There are three stories to a windmill, besides the ground-floor. The first floor is pretty empty; the next is nearly full of millstones and machinery, and the one above is where the corn runs down from on to the millstones.

We settled to let the girls have the first floor, which was covered with heaps of nets, and we would pig in with the millstones on the floor above.

We had just secretly got out the last of the six blankets from the house and got it into the Mill disguised in a clothes-basket, when we heard wheels, and there was the gentleman back again. He had only got one portmanteau after all, and that was a very little one.

Mrs. Beale was bobbing at him in the doorway when we got up. Of course we had told her he had rented rooms, but we had not said how many, for fear she should ask where we were going to sleep, and we had a feeling that but few grown-ups would like our sleeping in a mill, however much we were living the higher life by sacrificing ourselves to get money for Miss Sandal.

The gentleman ordered sheep's-head and trotters for dinner, and when he found he could not have that he said--