HE PUT HIS BOOT ON THE STEP,
AND THE PORTER WHO WAS OPENING THE CAB DOOR WINKED BACK 201

HE LOOKED AT OSWALD'S BOOTS 203

HE FETCHED DOWN HALF A DOZEN PLANKS AND THE WORKMAN 218

"HOW MUCH?" SAID THE GENTLEMAN SHORTLY 222

"THEN I'LL MAKE YOU!" HE SAID, CATCHING HOLD OF OSWALD 232

A COASTGUARD ORDERED US QUITE HARSHLY 244

SURE ENOUGH IT WAS SEA-WATER, AS THE UNAMIABLE ONE SAID
WHEN HE HAD TASTED IT 259

"I SAY, BEALIE DEAR, YOU'VE GOT A BOOK UP AT YOUR PLACE" 265

ALICE BEAT THE DONKEY FROM THE CART, THE REST SHOUTED 272

"WE'VE GOT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS," SAID NOEL 280

_THE ROAD TO ROME; OR, THE SILLY STOWAWAY_

WE Bastables have only two uncles, and neither of them, are our
own natural-born relatives. One is a great-uncle, and the other is
the uncle from his birth of Albert, who used to live next door to
us in the Lewisham Road. When we first got to know him (it was over
some baked potatoes, and is quite another story) we called him
Albert-next-door's-Uncle, and then Albert's uncle for short. But
Albert's uncle and my father joined in taking a jolly house in the
country, called the Moat House, and we stayed there for our summer
holidays; and it was there, through an accident to a pilgrim with peas
in his shoes--that's another story too--that we found Albert's uncle's
long-lost love; and as she was very old indeed--twenty-six next
birthday--and he was ever so much older in the vale of years, he had to
get married almost directly, and it was fixed for about Christmas-time.
And when our holidays came the whole six of us went down to the Moat
House with Father and Albert's uncle. We never had a Christmas in the
country before. It was simply ripping. And the long-lost love--her name
was Miss Ashleigh, but we were allowed to call her Aunt Margaret even
before the wedding made it really legal for us to do so--she and her
jolly clergyman brother used to come over, and sometimes we went to the
Cedars, where they live, and we had games and charades, and
hide-and-seek, and Devil in the Dark, which is a game girls pretend to
like, and very few do really, and crackers and a Christmas-tree for the
village children, and everything you can jolly well think of.

And all the time, whenever we went to the Cedars, there was all sorts of
silly fuss