Part 12 (1/2)

LEGAL ANSWER WANTED. A quant.i.ty of excellent string is offered if you know whether there really is a law pa.s.sed about not buying gunpowder under thirteen.--d.i.c.kY.

The price of this paper is one s.h.i.+lling each, and sixpence extra for the picture of the Malabar going down with all hands. If we sell one hundred copies we will write another paper.

And so we would have done, but we never did. Albert-next-door's uncle gave us two s.h.i.+llings, that was all. You can't restore fallen fortunes with two s.h.i.+llings!

CHAPTER 9. THE G. B.

Being editors is not the best way to wealth. We all feel this now, and highwaymen are not respected any more like they used to be.

I am sure we had tried our best to restore our fallen fortunes. We felt their fall very much, because we knew the Bastables had been rich once.

Dora and Oswald can remember when Father was always bringing nice things home from London, and there used to be turkeys and geese and wine and cigars come by the carrier at Christmas-time, and boxes of candied fruit and French plums in ornamental boxes with silk and velvet and gilding on them. They were called prunes, but the prunes you buy at the grocer's are quite different. But now there is seldom anything nice brought from London, and the turkey and the prune people have forgotten Father's address.

'How _can_ we restore those beastly fallen fortunes?' said Oswald.

'We've tried digging and writing and princesses and being editors.'

'And being bandits,' said H. O.

'When did you try that?' asked Dora quickly. 'You know I told you it was wrong.'

'It wasn't wrong the way we did it,' said Alice, quicker still, before Oswald could say, 'Who asked you to tell us anything about it?'

which would have been rude, and he is glad he didn't. 'We only caught Albert-next-door.'

'Oh, Albert-next-door!' said Dora contemptuously, and I felt more comfortable; for even after I didn't say, 'Who asked you, and cetera,'

I was afraid Dora was going to come the good elder sister over us. She does that a jolly sight too often.

d.i.c.ky looked up from the paper he was reading and said, 'This sounds likely,' and he read out--

'L100 secures partners.h.i.+p in lucrative business for sale of useful patent. L10 weekly. No personal attendance necessary.

Jobbins, 300, Old Street Road.'

'I wish we could secure that partners.h.i.+p,' said Oswald. He is twelve, and a very thoughtful boy for his age.

Alice looked up from her painting. She was trying to paint a fairy queen's frock with green bice, and it wouldn't rub. There is something funny about green bice. It never will rub off; no matter how expensive your paintbox is--and even boiling water is very little use.

She said, 'Bother the bice! And, Oswald, it's no use thinking about that. Where are we to get a hundred pounds?'

'Ten pounds a week is five pounds to us,' Oswald went on--he had done the sum in his head while Alice was talking--'because partners.h.i.+p means halves. It would be A1.'

Noel sat sucking his pencil--he had been writing poetry as usual. I saw the first two lines--

I wonder why Green Bice Is never very nice.

Suddenly he said, 'I wish a fairy would come down the chimney and drop a jewel on the table--a jewel worth just a hundred pounds.'

'She might as well give you the hundred pounds while she was about it,'

said Dora.