d he said, 'Was that what
the plumber would do to the leaky pipe?' And how pleased your governor
would be to find it mended. And then he went and did it."

"You told me to," said Noel, turning greener and greener.

"Go along with Alice," said Oswald. "We'll stand by you. And Noel, old
chap, you must keep your word and not sneak about that sneaking hound."

Alice took him away, and we were left with the horrid Archibald.

"Now," said Oswald, "I won't break my word, no more will the rest of us.
But we won't speak another word to you as long as we live."

"Oh, Oswald," said Dora, "what about the sun going down?"

"Let it jolly well go," said Dicky in furiousness. "Oswald didn't say
we'd go on being angry for ever, but I'm with Oswald all the way. I
won't talk to cads--no, not even before grown-ups. They can jolly well
think what they like."

After this no one spoke to Archibald.

Oswald rushed for a plumber, and such was his fiery eloquence he really
caught one and brought him home. Then he and Dicky waited for Father
when he came in, and they got him into the study, and Oswald said what
they had all agreed on. It was this:

"Father, we are all most awfully sorry, but one of us has cut the pipe
in the loft, and if you make us tell you any more it will not be
honourable, and we are very sorry. Please, please don't ask who it was
did it."

Father bit his moustache and looked worried, and Dicky went on--

"Oswald has got a plumber and he is doing it now."

Then Father said, "How on earth did you get into the loft?"

And then of course the treasured secret of the rope-ladder had to be
revealed. We had never been told not to make rope-ladders and go into
the loft, but we did not try to soften the anger of our Father by saying
this. It would not have been any good either. We just had to stick it.
And the punishment of our crime was most awful. It was that we weren't
to go to Mrs. Leslie's party. And Archibald was to go, because when
Father asked him if he was in it with the rest of us, he said "No." I
cannot think of any really gentle, manly, and proper words to say what I
think about my unnatural cousin.

We kept our word about not speaking to him, and I think Father thought
we were jealous because he was going to that conjuring, magic lantern
party and we were not. Noel was the most unhappy, because he knew we
were all being punished for what he had done. He was very affectionate
and tried to write pieces of po