The Story of the Treasure Seekers - Эдит Несбит 5 стр.

I like your poetry very much, young man. Ill give youlet me see; how much shall I give you for it?

As much as ever you can, said Noel. You see I want a good deal of money to restore the fallen fortunes of the house of Bastable.

The gentleman put on some eye-glasses and looked hard at us. Then he sat down.

Thats a good idea, said he. Tell me how you came to think of it. And, I say, have you had any tea? Theyve just sent out for mine.

He rang a tingly bell, and the boy brought in a tray with a teapot and a thick cup and saucer and things, and he had to fetch another tray for us, when he was told to; and we had tea with the Editor of the Daily Recorder. I suppose it was a very proud moment for Noel, though I did not think of that till afterwards. The Editor asked us a lot of questions, and we told him a good deal, though of course I did not tell a stranger all our reasons for thinking that the family fortunes wanted restoring. We stayed about half an hour, and when we were going away he said again

I shall print all your poems, my poet; and now what do you think theyre worth?

I dont know, Noel said. You see I didnt write them to sell.

Why did you write them then? he asked.

Noel said he didnt know; he supposed because he wanted to.

Art for Arts sake, eh? said the Editor, and he seemed quite delighted, as though Noel had said something clever.

Well, would a guinea meet your views? he asked.

I have read of people being at a loss for words, and dumb with emotion, and Ive read of people being turned to stone with astonishment, or joy, or something, but I never knew how silly it looked till I saw Noel standing staring at the Editor with his mouth open. He went red and he went white, and then he got crimson, as if you were rubbing more and more crimson lake on a palette. But he didnt say a word, so Oswald had to say

I should jolly well think so.

So the Editor gave Noel a sovereign and a shilling, and he shook hands with us both, but he thumped Noel on the back and said

Buck up, old man! Its your first guinea, but it wont be your last. Now go along home, and in about ten years you can bring me some more poetry. Not beforesee? Im just taking this poetry of yours because I like it very much; but we dont put poetry in this paper at all. I shall have to put it in another paper I know of.

What do you put in your paper? I asked, for Father always takes the Daily Chronicle, and I didnt know what the Recorder was like. We chose it because it has such a glorious office, and a clock outside lighted up.

Oh, news, said he, and dull articles, and things about Celebrities. If you know any Celebrities, now?

Noel asked him what Celebrities were.

Oh, the Queen and the Princes, and people with titles, and people who write, or sing, or actor do something clever or wicked.

I dont know anybody wicked, said Oswald, wishing he had known Dick Turpin, or Claude Duval, so as to be able to tell the Editor things about them. But I know some one with a titleLord Tottenham.

The mad old Protectionist, eh? How did you come to know him?

We dont know him to speak to. But he goes over the Heath every day at three, and he strides along like a giantwith a black cloak like Lord Tennysons flying behind him, and he talks to himself like one oclock.

What does he say? The Editor had sat down again, and he was fiddling with a blue pencil.

We only heard him once, close enough to understand, and then he said, The curse of the country, sirruin and desolation! And then he went striding along again, hitting at the furze-bushes as if they were the heads of his enemies.

Excellent descriptive touch, said the Editor. Well, go on.

Thats all I know about him, except that he stops in the middle of the Heath every day, and he looks all round to see if theres any one about, and if there isnt, he takes his collar off.

The Editor interruptedwhich is considered rudeand said

Youre not romancing?

I beg your pardon? said Oswald. Drawing the long bow, I mean, said the Editor.

Oswald drew himself up, and said he wasnt a liar.

The Editor only laughed, and said romancing and lying were not at all the same; only it was important to know what you were playing at. So Oswald accepted his apology, and went on.

We were hiding among the furze-bushes one day, and we saw him do it. He took off his collar, and he put on a clean one, and he threw the other among the furze-bushes. We picked it up afterwards, and it was a beastly paper one!

Thank you, said the Editor, and he got up and put his hand in his pocket. Thats well worth five shillings, and there they are. Would you like to see round the printing offices before you go home?

I pocketed my five bob, and thanked him, and I said we should like it very much. He called another gentleman and said something we couldnt hear. Then he said good-bye again; and all this time Noel hadnt said a word. But now he said, Ive made a poem about you. It is called Lines to a Noble Editor. Shall I write it down?

The Editor gave him the blue pencil, and he sat down at the Editors table and wrote. It was this, he told me afterwards as well as he could remember

Thank you, said the Editor. I dont think I ever had a poem addressed to me before. I shall treasure it, I assure you.

Then the other gentleman said something about Maecenas, and we went off to see the printing office with at least one pound seven in our pockets.

It was good hunting, and no mistake!

But he never put Noels poetry in the Daily Recorder. It was quite a long time afterwards we saw a sort of story thing in a magazine, on the station bookstall, and that kind, sleepy-looking Editor had written it, I suppose. It was not at all amusing. It said a lot about Noel and me, describing us all wrong, and saying how we had tea with the Editor; and all Noels poems were in the story thing. I think myself the Editor seemed to make game of them, but Noel was quite pleased to see them printedso thats all right. It wasnt my poetry anyhow, I am glad to say.

E. Nesbit

The Story of the Treasure Seekers. Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune

CHAPTER 1. THE COUNCIL OF WAYS AND MEANS

This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the looking.

There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how beastly it is when a story begins, Alas! said Hildegarde with a deep sigh, we must look our last on this ancestral homeand then some one else says somethingand you dont know for pages and pages where the home is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it. Our ancestral home is in the Lewisham Road. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not a large one. We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father. Our Mother is dead, and if you think we dont care because I dont tell you much about her you only show that you do not understand people at all. Dora is the eldest. Then Oswaldand then Dicky. Oswald won the Latin prize at his preparatory schooland Dicky is good at sums. Alice and Noel are twins: they are ten, and Horace Octavius is my youngest brother. It is one of us that tells this storybut I shall not tell you which: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is going on you may be trying to guess, only I bet you dont. It was Oswald who first thought of looking for treasure. Oswald often thinks of very interesting things. And directly he thought of it he did not keep it to himself, as some boys would have done, but he told the others, and said

Ill tell you what, we must go and seek for treasure: it is always what you do to restore the fallen fortunes of your House.

Dora said it was all very well. She often says that. She was trying to mend a large hole in one of Noels stockings. He tore it on a nail when we were playing shipwrecked mariners on top of the chicken-house the day H. O. fell off and cut his chin: he has the scar still. Dora is the only one of us who ever tries to mend anything. Alice tries to make things sometimes. Once she knitted a red scarf for Noel because his chest is delicate, but it was much wider at one end than the other, and he wouldnt wear it. So we used it as a pennon, and it did very well, because most of our things are black or grey since Mother died; and scarlet was a nice change. Father does not like you to ask for new things. That was one way we had of knowing that the fortunes of the ancient House of Bastable were really fallen. Another way was that there was no more pocket-moneyexcept a penny now and then to the little ones, and people did not come to dinner any more, like they used to, with pretty dresses, driving up in cabsand the carpets got holes in themand when the legs came off things they were not sent to be mended, and we gave up having the gardener except for the front garden, and not that very often. And the silver in the big oak plate-chest that is lined with green baize all went away to the shop to have the dents and scratches taken out of it, and it never came back. We think Father hadnt enough money to pay the silver man for taking out the dents and scratches. The new spoons and forks were yellowy-white, and not so heavy as the old ones, and they never shone after the first day or two.

Father was very ill after Mother died; and while he was ill his business-partner went to Spainand there was never much money afterwards. I dont know why. Then the servants left and there was only one, a General. A great deal of your comfort and happiness depends on having a good General. The last but one was nice: she used to make jolly good currant puddings for us, and let us have the dish on the floor and pretend it was a wild boar we were killing with our forks. But the General we have now nearly always makes sago puddings, and they are the watery kind, and you cannot pretend anything with them, not even islands, like you do with porridge.

Then we left off going to school, and Father said we should go to a good school as soon as he could manage it. He said a holiday would do us all good. We thought he was right, but we wished he had told us he couldnt afford it. For of course we knew.

Then a great many people used to come to the door with envelopes with no stamps on them, and sometimes they got very angry, and said they were calling for the last time before putting it in other hands. I asked Eliza what that meant, and she kindly explained to me, and I was so sorry for Father.

And once a long, blue paper came; a policeman brought it, and we were so frightened. But Father said it was all right, only when he went up to kiss the girls after they were in bed they said he had been crying, though Im sure thats not true. Because only cowards and snivellers cry, and my Father is the bravest man in the world.

So you see it was time we looked for treasure and Oswald said so, and Dora said it was all very well. But the others agreed with Oswald. So we held a council. Dora was in the chairthe big dining-room chair, that we let the fireworks off from, the Fifth of November when we had the measles and couldnt do it in the garden. The hole has never been mended, so now we have that chair in the nursery, and I think it was cheap at the blowing-up we boys got when the hole was burnt.

We must do something, said Alice, because the exchequer is empty. She rattled the money-box as she spoke, and it really did rattle because we always keep the bad sixpence in it for luck.

Yesbut what shall we do? said Dicky. Its so jolly easy to say lets do something. Dicky always wants everything settled exactly. Father calls him the Definite Article.

Lets read all the books again. We shall get lots of ideas out of them. It was Noel who suggested this, but we made him shut up, because we knew well enough he only wanted to get back to his old books. Noel is a poet. He sold some of his poetry onceand it was printed, but that does not come in this part of the story.

Then Dicky said, Look here. Well be quite quiet for ten minutes by the clockand each think of some way to find treasure. And when weve thought well try all the ways one after the other, beginning with the eldest.

I shant be able to think in ten minutes, make it half an hour, said H. O. His real name is Horace Octavius, but we call him H. O. because of the advertisement, and its not so very long ago he was afraid to pass the hoarding where it says Eat H. O. in big letters. He says it was when he was a little boy, but I remember last Christmas but one, he woke in the middle of the night crying and howling, and they said it was the pudding. But he told me afterwards he had been dreaming that they really had come to eat H. O., and it couldnt have been the pudding, when you come to think of it, because it was so very plain.

Well, we made it half an hourand we all sat quiet, and thought and thought. And I made up my mind before two minutes were over, and I saw the others had, all but Dora, who is always an awful time over everything. I got pins and needles in my leg from sitting still so long, and when it was seven minutes H. O. cried outOh, it must be more than half an hour!

H. O. is eight years old, but he cannot tell the clock yet. Oswald could tell the clock when he was six.

We all stretched ourselves and began to speak at once, but Dora put up her hands to her ears and said

One at a time, please. We arent playing Babel. (It is a very good game. Did you ever play it?)

So Dora made us all sit in a row on the floor, in ages, and then she pointed at us with the finger that had the brass thimble on. Her silver one got lost when the last General but two went away. We think she must have forgotten it was Doras and put it in her box by mistake. She was a very forgetful girl. She used to forget what she had spent money on, so that the change was never quite right.