New Treasure Seekers Part 8

"Here's the soap, Master Archerbald. I didn't put none in to-day."

He opened the door and put out his hand.

"Half a moment," said Jane, "I've got something else in my hand."

As she spoke the gas all over the house went down blue, and then went out. We held our breaths heavily.

"Here it is," she said; "I'll put it in your hand. I'll go down and turn off the burners and see about the gas. You'll be late, sir. If I was you I should get on a bit with the was.h.i.+ng of myself in the dark. I daresay the gas'll be five or ten minutes, and it's five o'clock now."

It wasn't, and of course she ought not to have said it, but it was useful all the same.

Noel came stumping up the stairs in the dark. He fumbled about and then whispered, "I've turned the little white china k.n.o.b that locks the bath-room door on the outside."

The water was bubbling and hissing in the pipes inside, and the darkness went on. Father and uncle had not come in yet, which was a fortunate blessing.

"Do be quiet!" said Noel. "Just you wait."

We all sat on the stairs and waited. Noel said--

"Don't ask me yet--you'll see--you wait."

And we waited, and the gas did not come back.

At last Archibald tried to come out--he thought he had washed himself clean, I suppose--and of course the door was fastened. He kicked and he hammered and he shouted, and we were glad.

At last Noel banged on the door and screamed through the keyhole--

"If we let you out will you let us off our promise not to tell about you and the pipes? We won't tell till you've gone back to school."

He wouldn't for a long time, but at last he had to.

"I shan't ever come to your beastly house again," he bellowed through the keyhole, "so I don't mind."

"Turn off the gas-burners then," said Oswald, ever thoughtful, though he was still in ignorance of the beautiful truth.

Then Noel sang out over the stairs, "Light up!" and Jane went round with a taper, and when the landing gas was lighted Noel turned the k.n.o.b of the bath-room, and Archibald exited in his Indian red and yellow dressing-gown that he thought so much of. Of course we expected his face to be red with rage, or white with pa.s.sion, or purple with mixed emotions, but you cannot think what our feelings were--indeed, we hardly knew what they were ourselves--when we saw that he was not red or white or purple, but _black_. He looked like an uneven sort of bluish n.i.g.g.e.r.

His face and hands were all black and blue in streaks, and so were the bits of his feet that showed between his Indian dressing-gown and his Turkish slippers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG!" JANE ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY.]

The word "Krikey" fell from more than one lip.

"What are you staring at?" he asked.

We did not answer even then, though I think it was less from keep-your-wordishness than amazement. But Jane did.

"Nyang, Nyang!" she uttered tauntingly. "You thought it was soap I was giving you, and all the time it was Maple's dark bright navy-blue indelible dye--won't wash out." She flashed a looking-gla.s.s in his face, and he looked and saw the depth of his dark bright navy-blueness.

Now, you may think that we shouted with laughing to see him done brown and dyed blue like this, but we did not. There was a spellbound silence.

Oswald, I know, felt a quite uncomfortable feeling inside him.

When Archibald had had one good look at himself he did not want any more. He ran to his room and bolted himself in.

"_He_ won't go to no parties," said Jane, and she flounced downstairs.

We never knew how much Noel had told her. He is very young, and not so strong as we are, and we thought it better not to ask.

Oswald and d.i.c.ky and H.O.--particularly H.O.--told each other it served him right, but after a bit Dora asked Noel if he would mind her trying to get some of it off our unloved cousin, and he said "No."

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHEN FATHER CAME HOME THERE WAS AN AWFUL ROW.]

But nothing would get it off him; and when Father came home there was an awful row. And he said we had disgraced ourselves and forgotten the duties of hospitality. We got it pretty straight, I can tell you. And we bore it all. I do not say we were martyrs to the honour of our house and to our plighted word, but I do say that we got it very straight indeed, and we did not tell the provocativeness we had had from our guest that drove the poet Noel to this wild and desperate revenge.

But some one told, and I have always thought it was Jane, and that is why we did not ask too many questions about what Noel had told her, because late that night Father came and said he now understood that we had meant to do right, except perhaps the one who cut the pipe with a chisel, and that must have been more silliness than naughtiness; and perhaps the being dyed blue served our cousin rather right. And he gave Archibald a few remarks in private, and when the dye began to come off--it was not a fast dye, though it said so on the paper it was wrapped in--Archibald, now a light streaky blue, really did seem to be making an effort to be something like decent. And when, now merely a pale grey, he had returned to school, he sent us a letter. It said:--

"_My dear Cousins_,--

"_I think that I was beastlier than I meant to be, but I am not accustomed to young kids. And I think uncle was right, and the way you stand up for the honour of our house is not all nonsense, like I said it was. If we ever meet in the future life I hope you will not keep a down on me about things. I don't think you can expect me to say more. From your affectionate cousin,_

"_Archibald Bastable._"

So I suppose rays of remorse penetrated that cold heart, and now perhaps he will be a reformed Bastable. I am sure I hope so, but I believe it is difficult, if not impossible, for a leopard to change his skin.

Still, I remember how indelibly black he looked when he came out of the fatal bath-room; and it nearly all wore off. And perhaps spots on the honourable inside parts of your soul come off with time. I hope so. The dye never came off the inside of the bath though. I think that was what annoyed our good great-uncle the most.

_OVER THE WATER TO CHINA_

OSWALD is a very modest boy, I believe, but even he would not deny that he has an active brain. The author has heard both his Father and Albert's uncle say so. And the most far-reaching ideas often come to him quite naturally--just as silly notions that aren't any good might come to you. And he had an idea which he meant to hold a council; about with his brothers and sisters; but just as he was going to unroll his idea to them our Father occurred suddenly in our midst and said a strange cousin was coming, and he came, and he was strange indeed! And when Fate had woven the threads of his dark destiny and he had been dyed a dark bright navy-blue, and had gone from our midst, Oswald went back to the idea that he had not forgotten. The words "tenacious of purpose" mean sticking to things, and these words always make me think of the character of the young hero of these pages. At least I suppose his brothers d.i.c.ky and Noel and H.O. are heroes too, in a way, but somehow the author of these lines knows more about Oswald's inside realness than he does about the others. But I am getting too deep for words.

So Oswald went into the common-room. Every one was busy. Noel and H.O.

were playing Halma. Dora was covering boxes with silver paper to put sweets in for a school treat, and d.i.c.ky was making a cardboard model of a new screw he has invented for ocean steamers. But Oswald did not mind interrupting, because Dora ought not to work too hard, and Halma always ends in a row, and I would rather not say what I think of d.i.c.ky's screw.

So Oswald said--

"I want a council. Where's Alice?"

Every one said they didn't know, and they made haste to say that we couldn't have a council without her. But Oswald's determined nature made him tell H.O. to chuck that rotten game and go and look for her. H.O. is our youngest brother, and it is right that he should remember this and do as he was told. But he happened to be winning the beastly Halma game, and Oswald saw that there was going to be trouble--"big trouble," as Mr.

Kipling says. And he was just bracing his young nerves for the conflict with H.O., because he was not going to stand any nonsense from his young brother about his not fetching Alice when he was jolly well told to, when the missing maiden bounced into the room bearing upon her brow the marks of ravaging agitatedness.

"Have any of you seen Pincher?" she cried, in haste.

We all said, "No, not since last night."

"Well, then, he's lost," Alice said, making the ugly face that means you are going to blub in half a minute.