Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “It is wrong, though,” said Dora.

  “Wrong be blowed!” said Dicky, snorting; “who began it I should like to know! The station’s a beastly awkward place to take it out of any one in. I wish I knew where he lived.”

  “I know that,” said Noël. “I’ve known it a long time — before Christmas, when we were going to the Moat House.”

  “Well, what is it, then?” asked Dicky savagely.

  “Don’t bite his head off,” remarked Alice. “Tell us about it, Noël. How do you know?”

  “It was when you were weighing yourselves on the weighing machine. I didn’t because my weight isn’t worth being weighed for. And there was a heap of hampers and turkeys and hares and things, and there was a label on a turkey and brown-paper parcel; and that porter that you hate so said to the other porter — —”

  “Oh, hurry up, do!” said Dicky.

  “I won’t tell you at all if you bully me,” said Noël, and Alice had to coax him before he would go on.

  “Well, he looked at the label and said, ‘Little mistake here, Bill — wrong address; ought to be 3, Abel Place, eh?’

  “And the other one looked, and he said, ‘Yes; it’s got your name right enough. Fine turkey, too, and his chains in the parcel. Pity they ain’t more careful about addressing things, eh?’ So when they had done laughing about it I looked at the label and it said, ‘James Johnson, 8, Granville Park.’ So I knew it was 3, Abel Place, he lived at, and his name was James Johnson.”

  “Good old Sherlock Holmes!” said Oswald.

  “You won’t really hurt him,” said Noël, “will you? Not Corsican revenge with knives, or poisoned bowls? I wouldn’t do more than a good booby-trap, if I was you.”

  When Noël said the word “booby-trap,” we all saw a strange, happy look come over Dicky’s face. It is called a far-away look, I believe, and you can see it in the picture of a woman cuddling a photograph-album with her hair down, that is in all the shops, and they call it “The Soul’s Awakening.”

  Directly Dicky’s soul had finished waking up he shut his teeth together with a click. Then he said, “I’ve got it.”

  Of course we all knew that.

  “Any one who thinks revenge is wrong is asked to leave now.”

  Dora said he was very unkind, and did he really want to turn her out?

  “There’s a jolly good fire in Father’s study,” he said. “No, I’m not waxy with you, but I’m going to have my revenge, and I don’t want you to do anything you thought wrong. You’d only make no end of a fuss afterwards.”

  “Well, it is wrong, so I’ll go,” said Dora. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, that’s all!”

  And she went.

  Then Dicky said, “Now, any more conscious objectors?”

  And when no one replied he went on: “It was you saying ‘Booby-trap’ gave me the idea. His name’s James Johnson, is it? And he said the things were addressed wrong, did he? Well, I’ll send him a Turkey-and-chains.”

  “A Turk in chains,” said Noël, growing owley-eyed at the thought—”a live Turk — or — no, not a dead one, Dicky?”

  “The Turk I’m going to send won’t be a live one nor yet a dead one.”

  “How horrible! Half dead. That’s worse than anything,” and Noël became so green in the face that Alice told Dicky to stop playing the goat, and tell us what his idea really was.

  “Don’t you see yet?” he cried; “I saw it directly.”

  “I daresay,” said Oswald; “it’s easy to see your own idea. Drive ahead.”

  “Well, I’m going to get a hamper and pack it full of parcels and put a list of them on the top — beginning Turk-and-chains, and send it to Mister James Johnson, and when he opens the parcels there’ll be nothing inside.”

  “There must be something, you know,” said H.O., “or the parcels won’t be any shape except flatness.”

  “Oh, there’ll be something right enough,” was the bitter reply of the one who had not been to the Hippodrome, “but it won’t be the sort of something he’ll expect it to be. Let’s do it now. I’ll get a hamper.”

  He got a big one out of the cellar and four empty bottles with their straw cases. We filled the bottles with black ink and water, and red ink and water, and soapy water, and water plain. And we put them down on the list —

  IT WAS RATHER DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING THE SHAPE OF A TURKEY.

  1 bottle of port wine.

  1 bottle of sherry wine.

  1 bottle of sparkling champagne.

  1 bottle of rum.

  The rest of the things we put on the list were —

  1 turkey-and-chains.

  2 pounds of chains.

  1 plum-pudding.

  4 pounds of mince-pies.

  2 pounds of almonds and raisins.

  1 box of figs.

  1 bottle of French plums.

  1 large cake.

  And we made up parcels to look outside as if their inside was full of the delicious attributes described in the list. It was rather difficult to get anything the shape of a turkey but with coals and crushed newspapers and firewood we did it, and when it was done up with lots of string and the paper artfully squeezed tight to the firewood to look like the Turk’s legs it really was almost lifelike in its deceivingness. The chains, or sausages, we did with dusters — and not clean ones — rolled tight, and the paper moulded gently to their forms. The plum-pudding was a newspaper ball. The mince-pies were newspapers too, and so were the almonds and raisins. The box of figs was a real fig-box with cinders and ashes in it damped to keep them from rattling about. The French-plum bottle was real too. It had newspaper soaked in ink in it, and the cake was half a muff-box of Dora’s done up very carefully and put at the bottom of the hamper. Inside the muff-box we put a paper with —

  “Revenge is not wrong when the other people begin. It was you began, and now you are jolly well served out.”

  We packed all the bottles and parcels into the hamper, and put the list on the very top, pinned to the paper that covered the false breast of the imitation Turk.

  Dicky wanted to write—”From an unknown friend,” but we did not think that was fair, considering how Dicky felt.

  So at last we put—”From one who does not wish to sign his name.”

  And that was true, at any rate.

  Dicky and Oswald lugged the hamper down to the shop that has Carter Paterson’s board outside.

  “I vote we don’t pay the carriage,” said Dicky, but that was perhaps because he was still so very angry about being pulled off the train. Oswald had not had it done to him, so he said that we ought to pay the carriage. And he was jolly glad afterwards that this honourable feeling had arisen in his young bosom, and that he had jolly well made Dicky let it rise in his.

  We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but Dicky said it was cheap for a high-class revenge like this, and after all it was his money the carriage was paid with.

  So then we went home and had another go in of grub — because tea had been rather upset by Dicky’s revenge.

  The people where we left the hamper told us that it would be delivered next day. So next morning we gloated over the thought of the sell that porter was in for, and Dicky was more deeply gloating than any one.

  “I expect it’s got there by now,” he said at dinner-time; “it’s a first class booby-trap; what a sell for him! He’ll read the list and then he’ll take out one parcel after another till he comes to the cake. It was a ripping idea! I’m glad I thought of it!”

  “I’m not,” said Noël suddenly. “I wish you hadn’t — I wish we hadn’t. I know just exactly what he feels like now. He feels as if he’d like to kill you for it, and I daresay he would if you hadn’t been a craven, white-feathered skulker and not signed your name.”

  It was a thunderbolt in our midst Noël behaving like this. It made Oswald feel a sick inside feeling that perhaps Dora had been right. She sometimes is — and Oswald hates this feeling.

  Dicky was
so surprised at the unheard-of cheek of his young brother that for a moment he was speechless, and before he got over his speechlessness Noël was crying and wouldn’t have any more dinner. Alice spoke in the eloquent language of the human eye and begged Dicky to look over it this once. And he replied by means of the same useful organ that he didn’t care what a silly kid thought. So no more was said. When Noël had done crying he began to write a piece of poetry and kept at it all the afternoon. Oswald only saw just the beginning. It was called

  “THE DISAPPOINTED PORTER’S FURY

  Supposed to be by the Porter himself,”

  and it began: —

  “When first I opened the hamper fair

  And saw the parcel inside there

  My heart rejoiced like dry gardens when

  It rains — but soon I changed and then

  I seized my trusty knife and bowl

  Of poison, and said ‘Upon the whole

  I will have the life of the man

  Or woman who thought of this wicked plan

  To deceive a trusting porter so.

  No noble heart would have thought of it. No.’”

  There were pages and pages of it. Of course it was all nonsense — the poetry, I mean. And yet . . . . . . (I have seen that put in books when the author does not want to let out all he thought at the time.)

  That evening at tea-time Jane came and said —

  “Master Dicky, there’s an old aged man at the door inquiring if you live here.”

  So Dicky thought it was the bootmaker perhaps; so he went out, and Oswald went with him, because he wanted to ask for a bit of cobbler’s wax.

  But it was not the shoemaker. It was an old man, pale in the face and white in the hair, and he was so old that we asked him into Father’s study by the fire, as soon as we had found out it was really Dicky he wanted to see.

  When we got him there he said —

  “Might I trouble you to shut the door?”

  This is the way a burglar or a murderer might behave, but we did not think he was one. He looked too old for these professions.

  When the door was shut, he said —

  “I ain’t got much to say, young gemmen. It’s only to ask was it you sent this?”

  He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it was our list. Oswald and Dicky looked at each other.

  “Did you send it?” said the old man again.

  So then Dicky shrugged his shoulders and said, “Yes.”

  Oswald said, “How did you know and who are you?”

  The old man got whiter than ever. He pulled out a piece of paper — it was the greenish-grey piece we’d wrapped the Turk and chains in. And it had a label on it that we hadn’t noticed, with Dicky’s name and address on it. The new bat he got at Christmas had come in it.

  WHEN THE DOOR WAS SHUT HE SAID, “I AIN’T GOT MUCH TO SAY, YOUNG GEMMEN.”

  “That’s how I know,” said the old man. “Ah, be sure your sin will find you out.”

  “But who are you, anyway!” asked Oswald again.

  “Oh, I ain’t nobody in particular,” he said. “I’m only the father of the pore gell as you took in with your cruel, deceitful, lying tricks. Oh, you may look uppish, young sir, but I’m here to speak my mind, and I’ll speak it if I die for it. So now!”

  “But we didn’t send it to a girl,” said Dicky. “We wouldn’t do such a thing. We sent it for a — for a — —” I think he tried to say for a joke, but he couldn’t with the fiery way the old man looked at him—”for a sell, to pay a porter out for stopping me getting into a train when it was just starting, and I missed going to the Circus with the others.” Oswald was glad Dicky was not too proud to explain to the old man. He was rather afraid he might be.

  “I never sent it to a girl,” he said again.

  “Ho,” said the aged one. “An’ who told you that there porter was a single man? It was his wife — my pore gell — as opened your low parcel, and she sees your lying list written out so plain on top, and, sez she to me, ‘Father,’ says she, ‘ere’s a friend in need! All these good things for us, and no name signed, so that we can’t even say thank you. I suppose it’s some one knows how short we are just now, and hardly enough to eat with coals the price they are,’ says she to me. ‘I do call that kind and Christian,’ says she, ‘and I won’t open not one of them lovely parcels till Jim comes ‘ome,’ she says, ‘and we’ll enjoy the pleasures of it together, all three of us,’ says she. And when he came home — we opened of them lovely parcels. She’s a cryin’ her eyes out at home now, and Jim, he only swore once, and I don’t blame him for that one — though never an evil speaker myself — and then he set himself down on a chair and puts his elbows on it to hide his face like — and ‘Emmie,’ says he, ‘so help me. I didn’t know I’d got an enemy in the world. I always thought we’d got nothing but good friends,’ says he. An’ I says nothing, but I picks up the paper, and comes here to your fine house to tell you what I think of you. It’s a mean, low-down, dirty, nasty trick, and no gentleman wouldn’t a-done it. So that’s all — and it’s off my chest, and good-night to you gentlemen both!”

  He turned to go out. I shall not tell you what Oswald felt, except that he did hope Dicky felt the same, and would behave accordingly. And Dicky did, and Oswald was both pleased and surprised.

  Dicky said —

  “Oh, I say, stop a minute. I didn’t think of your poor girl.”

  “And her youngest but a bare three weeks old,” said the old man angrily.

  “I didn’t, on my honour I didn’t think of anything but paying the porter out.”

  “He was only a doing of his duty,” the old man said.

  “Well, I beg your pardon and his,” said Dicky; “it was ungentlemanly, and I’m very sorry. And I’ll try to make it up somehow. Please make it up. I can’t do more than own I’m sorry. I wish I hadn’t — there!”

  “Well,” said the old man slowly, “we’ll leave it at that. Next time p’r’aps you’ll think a bit who it’s going to be as’ll get the benefit of your payings out.”

  Dicky made him shake hands, and Oswald did the same.

  Then we had to go back to the others and tell them. It was hard. But it was ginger-ale and seed-cake compared to having to tell Father, which was what it came to in the end. For we all saw, though Noël happened to be the one to say it first, that the only way we could really make it up to James Johnson and his poor girl and his poor girl’s father, and the baby that was only three weeks old, was to send them a hamper with all the things in it — real things, that we had put on the list in the revengeful hamper. And as we had only six-and-sevenpence among us we had to tell Father. Besides, you feel better inside when you have. He talked to us about it a bit, but he is a good Father and does not jaw unduly. He advanced our pocket-money to buy a real large Turk-and-chains. And he gave us six bottles of port wine, because he thought that would be better for the poor girl who had the baby than rum or sherry or even sparkling champagne.

  We were afraid to send the hamper by Carter Pat. for fear they should think it was another Avenging Take-in. And that was one reason why we took it ourselves in a cab. The other reason was that we wanted to see them open the hamper, and another was that we wanted — at least Dicky wanted — to have it out man to man with the porter and his wife, and tell them himself how sorry he was.

  So we got our gardener to find out secretly when that porter was off duty, and when we knew the times we went to his house at one of them.

  Then Dicky got out of the cab and went in and said what he had to say. And then we took in the hamper.

  And the old man and his daughter and the porter were most awfully decent to us, and the porter’s wife said, “Lor! let bygones be bygones is what I say! Why, we wouldn’t never have had this handsome present but for the other. Say no more about it, sir, and thank you kindly, I’m sure.”

  And we have been friends with them ever since.

  We were short of pocket-money for some time, but
Oswald does not complain, though the Turk was Dicky’s idea entirely. Yet Oswald is just, and he owns that he helped as much as he could in packing the Hamper of the Avenger. Dora paid her share, too, though she wasn’t in it. The author does not shrink from owning that this was very decent of Dora.

  This is all the story of —

  THE TURK IN CHAINS; or,

  RICHARD’S REVENGE.

  (His name is really Richard, the same as Father’s. We only call him Dicky for short.)

  THE GOLDEN GONDOLA

  Albert’s uncle is tremendously clever, and he writes books. I have told how he fled to Southern shores with a lady who is rather nice. His having to marry her was partly our fault, but we did not mean to do it, and we were very sorry for what we had done. But afterwards we thought perhaps it was all for the best, because if left alone he might have married widows, or old German governesses, or Murdstone aunts, like Daisy and Denny have, instead of the fortunate lady that we were the cause of his being married by.

  The wedding was just before Christmas, and we were all there. And then they went to Rome for a period of time that is spoken of in books as the honeymoon. You know that H.O., my youngest brother, tried to go too, disguised as the contents of a dress-basket — but was betrayed and brought back.

  Conversation often takes place about the things you like, and we often spoke of Albert’s uncle.

  One day we had a ripping game of hide-and-seek-all-over-the-house-and-all-the-lights-out, sometimes called devil-in-the-dark, and never to be played except when your father and uncle are out, because of the screams which the strongest cannot suppress when caught by “he” in unexpectedness and total darkness. The girls do not like this game so much as we do. But it is only fair for them to play it. We have more than once played doll’s tea-parties to please them.

  Well, when the game was over we were panting like dogs on the hearthrug in front of the common-room fire, and H.O. said —

  “I wish Albert’s uncle had been here; he does enjoy it so.”

  Oswald has sometimes thought Albert’s uncle only played to please us. But H.O. may be right.