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 shilling 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 shillings, that was all. You can't restore fallen fortunes with two shillings!

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 partnership 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 partnership,' 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 partnership 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.

'Or while she was about it she might as well give us five pounds a week,' said Alice.

'Or fifty,' said I.

'Or five hundred,' said d.i.c.ky.

I saw H. O. open his mouth, and I knew he was going to say, 'Or five thousand,' so I said--

'Well, she won't give us fivepence, but if you'd only do as I am always saying, and rescue a wealthy old gentleman from deadly peril he would give us a pot of money, and we could have the partnership and five pounds a week. Five pounds a week would buy a great many things.'

Then d.i.c.ky said, 'Why shouldn't we borrow it?' So we said, 'Who from?'

and then he read this out of the paper--

MONEY PRIVATELY WITHOUT FEES THE BOND STREET BANK Manager, Z. Rosenbaum.

Advances cash from L20 to L10,000 on ladies' or gentlemen's note of hand alone, without security. No fees. No inquiries.

Absolute privacy guaranteed.

'What does it all mean?' asked H. O.

'It means that there is a kind gentleman who has a lot of money, and he doesn't know enough poor people to help, so he puts it in the paper that he will help them, by lending them his money--that's it, isn't it, d.i.c.ky?'

Dora explained this and d.i.c.ky said, 'Yes.' And H. O. said he was a Generous Benefactor, like in Miss Edgeworth. Then Noel wanted to know what a note of hand was, and d.i.c.ky knew that, because he had read it in a book, and it was just a letter saying you will pay the money when you can, and signed with your name.

'No inquiries!' said Alice. 'Oh--d.i.c.ky--do you think he would?'

'Yes, I think so,' said d.i.c.ky. 'I wonder Father doesn't go to this kind gentleman. I've seen his name before on a circular in Father's study.'

'Perhaps he has.' said Dora.

But the rest of us were sure he hadn't, because, of course, if he had, there would have been more money to buy nice things. Just then Pincher jumped up and knocked over the painting-water. He is a very careless dog. I wonder why painting-water is always such an ugly colour? Dora ran for a duster to wipe it up, and H. O. dropped drops of the water on his hands and said he had got the plague. So we played at the plague for a bit, and I was an Arab physician with a bath-towel turban, and cured the plague with magic acid-drops. After that it was time for dinner, and after dinner we talked it all over and settled that we would go and see the Generous Benefactor the very next day. But we thought perhaps the G.

B.--it is short for Generous Benefactor--would not like it if there were so many of us. I have often noticed that it is the worst of our being six--people think six a great many, when it's children. That sentence looks wrong somehow. I mean they don't mind six pairs of boots, or six pounds of apples, or six oranges, especially in equations, but they seem to think you ought not to have five brothers and sisters. Of course d.i.c.ky was to go, because it was his idea. Dora had to go to Blackheath to see an old lady, a friend of Father's, so she couldn't go. Alice said _she_ ought to go, because it said, 'Ladies _and_ gentlemen,' and perhaps the G. B. wouldn't let us have the money unless there were both kinds of us.

H. O. said Alice wasn't a lady; and she said _he_ wasn't going, anyway.

Then he called her a disagreeable cat, and she began to cry.

But Oswald always tries to make up quarrels, so he said--

'You're little sillies, both of you!'

And Dora said, 'Don't cry, Alice; he only meant you weren't a grown-up lady.'

Then H. O. said, 'What else did you think I meant, Disagreeable?'

So d.i.c.ky said, 'Don't be disagreeable yourself, H. O. Let her alone and say you're sorry, or I'll jolly well make you!'

So H. O. said he was sorry. Then Alice kissed him and said she was sorry too; and after that H. O. gave her a hug, and said, 'Now I'm _really and truly_ sorry,' So it was all right.