Oswald Bastable and Others

Oswald did the sum in his head, which told him the Goat was worth one pound two shillings and sixpence, and he went away sadly, for he did want that Goat.

We were later for dinner than I ever remember our being, and Miss Blake had not kept us any pudding; but Oswald bore up when he thought of the Goat. But Dicky seemed to have no beautiful inside thoughts to sustain him, and he was so dull Dora said she only hoped he wasn't going to have measles.

It was when we had gone up to bed that he fiddled about with the studs and old buttons and things in a velvety box he had till Oswald was in bed, and then he said:

'Look here, Oswald, I feel as if I was a murderer, or next-door to. It was our moving that ladder: I'm certain it was. And now he's laid up, and his wife and children.'

Oswald sat up in bed, and said kindly:

'You're right, old chap. It was your moving that ladder. Of course, you didn't put it back firm. But the man's not killed.'

'We oughtn't to have touched it,' he said. 'Or we ought to have told them we had, or something. Suppose his arm gets blood-poisoning, or inflammation, or something awful? I couldn't go on living if I was a doer of a deed like that.'

Oswald had never seen Dicky so upset. He takes things jolly easy as a rule. Oswald said:

'Well, it is no use fuming over it. You'd better get out of your clothes and go to bed. We'll cut down in the morning and leave our cards and kind inquiries.'

Oswald only meant to be kind, and by making this amusing remark he wished to draw his erring brother's thoughts from the remorse that was poisoning his young life, and would very likely keep him awake for an hour or more thinking of it, and fidgetting about so that Oswald couldn't sleep.

But Dicky did not take it at all the way Oswald meant. He said:

'Shut up, Oswald, you beast!' and lay down on his bed and began to blub.

Oswald said, 'Beast yourself!' because it is the proper thing to say; but he was not angry, only sorry that Dicky was so duffing as not to see what he meant. And he got out of bed and went softly to the girls' room, which is next ours, and said:

'I say, come in to our room a sec., will you? Dicky is howling fit to bring the house down. I think a council of us elder ones would do him more good than anything.'

'Whatever is up?' Dora asked, getting into her dressing-gown.

'Oh, nothing, except that he's a murderer! Come on, and don't make a row. Mind the mats and our boots by the door.'

They came in, and Oswald said:

'Look here, Dicky, old boy, here are the girls, and we're going to have a council about it.'

They wanted to kiss him, but he wouldn't, and shrugged his shoulders about, and wouldn't speak; but when Alice had got hold of his hand he said in a muffled voice:

'You tell them, Oswald.'

When Oswald and Dicky were alone, you will have noticed the just elder brother blamed the proper person, which was Dicky, because he would go up on the stovehouse roof after his beastly ball, which Oswald did not care a rap about. And, besides, he knew it wasn't there. But now that other people were there Oswald, of course, said:

'You see, we moved the men's ladder when they were at their dinner. And you know the man that fell off the ladder, and we went with him in the cab to the place where that Goat was? Well, Dicky has only just thought of it; but, of course, it was really our fault his tumbling, because we couldn't have put the ladder back safely. And Dicky thinks if his arm blood-poisoned itself we should be as good as murderers.'

Dicky is perfectly straight; he sat up and sniffed, and blew his nose, and said:

'It was my idea moving the ladder: Oswald only helped.'

'Can't we ask uncle to see that the dear sufferer wants for nothing while he's ill, and all that?' said Dora.

'Well,' said Oswald, 'we could, of course. But, then, it would all come out. And about the fives ball too. And we can't be at all sure it was the ball made the greenhouse leak, because I know it never went over the house.'

'Yes, it did,' said Dicky, giving his nose a last stern blow.

Oswald was generous to a sorrowing foe, and took no notice, only went on:

'And about the ladder: we can't be quite sure it wouldn't have slipped on those tiles, even if we'd never moved it. But I think Dicky would feel jollier if we could do something for the man, and I know it would me.'

That looks mixed, but Oswald was rather agitated himself, and that was what he said.

'We must think of something to do to get money,' Alice said, 'like we used to do when we were treasure-seekers.'

Presently the girls went away, and we heard them jawing in their room. Just as Oswald was falling asleep the door opened, and a figure in white came in and bent above his almost sleeping form. It said:

'We've thought of something! We'll have a bazaar, like the people Miss Blake's elder sister lives with did for the poor iron church.'

The form glided away. Miss Blake is our housekeeper. Oswald could hear that Dicky was already sleeping, so he turned over and went to sleep himself. He dreamed of Goats, only they were as big as railway engines, and would keep ringing the church bells, till Oswald awoke, and it was the getting-up bell, and not a great Goat ringing it, but only Sarah as usual.

The idea of the bazaar seemed to please all of us.

'We can ask all the people we know to it,' said Alice.

'And wear our best frocks, and sell the things at the stalls,' said Dora.

Dicky said we could have it in the big greenhouse now the plants were out of it.

'I will write a poem for the man, and say it at the bazaar,' Noël said. 'I know people say poetry at bazaars. The one Aunt Carrie took me to a man said a piece about a cowboy.'

H. O. said there ought to be lots of sweets, and then everyone would buy them.

Oswald said someone would have to ask my father, and he said he would do it if the others liked. He did this because of an inside feeling in his mind that he knew might come on at any moment. So he did. And 'Yes' was the answer. And then the uncle gave Oswald a whole quid to buy things to sell at the bazaar, and my father gave him ten bob for the same useful and generous purpose, and said he was glad to see we were trying to do good to others.

When he said that the inside feeling in Oswald's mind began that he had felt afraid would, some time, and he told my father about him and Dicky moving the ladder, and about the hateful fives ball, and everything. And my father was awfully decent about it, so that Oswald was glad he had told.

The girls wrote the invitations to all our friends that very day. We boys went down to look in the shops and see what we could buy for the bazaar. And we went to ask how Mr. Augustus Victor Plunkett's arm was getting on, and to see the Goat.

The others liked the Goat almost as much as Oswald, and even Dicky agreed that it was our clear duty to buy the Goat for the sake of poor Mr. Plunkett.

Because, as Oswald said, if it was worth one pound two and six, we could easily sell it again for that, and we should have gained fifteen shillings for the sufferer.

So we bought the Goat, and changed the ten shillings to do it. The man untied the other end of the Goat's rope, and Oswald took hold of it, and said he hoped we were not robbing the man by taking his Goat from him for such a low price. And he said:

'Not at all, young gents. Don't you mention it. Pleased to oblige a friend any day of the week.'

So we started to take the Goat home. But after about half a street he would not come any more. He stopped still, and a lot of boys and people came round, just as if they had never seen a Goat before. We were beginning to feel quite uncomfortable, when Oswald remembered the Goat liked cocoanut ice, so Noël went into a shop and got threepenn'orth, and then the cheap animal consented to follow us home. So did the street boys. The cocoanut ice was more for the money than usual, but not so nice.

My father was not pleased when he saw the Goat. But when Alice told him it was for the bazaar, he laughed, and let us keep it in the stableyard.

It got out early in the morning, and came right into the house, and butted the cook in her own back-kitchen, a thing even Oswald himself would have hesitated before doing. So that showed it was a brave Goat.