e and me capturing the pig was never put in. We would scorn to write
our own good actions, but I suppose Dicky was dull with us all away; and
you must pity the dull, and not blame them.

I will not seek to unfold to you how we got the pig home, or how the
donkey was caught (that was poor sport compared to the pig). Nor will I
tell you a word of all that was said and done to the intrepid hunters
of the Black and Learned. I have told you all the interesting part. Seek
not to know the rest. It is better buried in obliquity.

CHAPTER 7. BEING BEAVERS; OR, THE YOUNG EXPLORERS (ARCTIC OR OTHERWISE)

You read in books about the pleasures of London, and about how people
who live in the country long for the gay whirl of fashion in town
because the country is so dull. I do not agree with this at all. In
London, or at any rate Lewisham, nothing happens unless you make it
happen; or if it happens it doesn't happen to you, and you don't know
the people it does happen to. But in the country the most interesting
events occur quite freely, and they seem to happen to you as much as to
anyone else. Very often quite without your doing anything to help.

The natural and right ways of earning your living in the country are
much jollier than town ones, too; sowing and reaping, and doing things
with animals, are much better sport than fishmongering or bakering or
oil-shopping, and those sort of things, except, of course, a plumber's
and gasfitter's, and he is the same in town or country--most interesting
and like an engineer.

I remember what a nice man it was that came to cut the gas off once
at our old house in Lewisham, when my father's business was feeling
so poorly. He was a true gentleman, and gave Oswald and Dicky over
two yards and a quarter of good lead piping, and a brass tap that only
wanted a washer, and a whole handful of screws to do what we liked with.
We screwed the back door up with the screws, I remember, one night when
Eliza was out without leave. There was an awful row. We did not mean
to get her into trouble. We only thought it would be amusing for her to
find the door screwed up when she came down to take in the milk in the
morning. But I must not say any more about the Lewisham house. It is
only the pleasures of memory, and nothing to do with being beavers, or
any sort of exploring.

I think Dora and Daisy are the kind of girls who will grow up very good,
and perhaps marry missionaries. I am glad Oswald's des