till, H. O.,' observed Alice. 'It would be a
glorious act! I wish WE could.'

'What, sit still?' asked H. O.

'No, my child,' replied Oswald, 'most of us can do that when we try.
Your angel sister was only wishing to set up free drinks for the poor
and thirsty.'

'Not for all of them,' Alice said, 'just a few. Change places now,
Dicky. My feet aren't properly wet at all.'

It is very difficult to change places safely on the willow. The changers
have to crawl over the laps of the others, while the rest sit tight and
hold on for all they're worth. But the hard task was accomplished and
then Alice went on--

'And we couldn't do it for always, only a day or two--just while our
money held out. Eiffel Tower lemonade's the best, and you get a jolly
lot of it for your money too. There must be a great many sincerely
thirsty persons go along the Dover Road every day.'

'It wouldn't be bad. We've got a little chink between us,' said Oswald.

'And then think how the poor grateful creatures would linger and tell us
about their inmost sorrows. It would be most frightfully interesting.
We could write all their agonied life histories down afterwards like All
the Year Round Christmas numbers. Oh, do let's!'

Alice was wriggling so with earnestness that Dicky thumped her to make
her calm.

'We might do it, just for one day,' Oswald said, 'but it wouldn't be
much--only a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous dryness of all
the people in the whole world. Still, every little helps, as the mermaid
said when she cried into the sea.'

'I know a piece of poetry about that,' Denny said.

'Small things are best.
Care and unrest
To wealth and rank are given,
But little things
On little wings--

do something or other, I forget what, but it means the same as Oswald
was saying about the mermaid.'

'What are you going to call it?' asked Noel, coming out of a dream.

'Call what?'

'The Free Drinks game.'

'It's a horrid shame
If the Free Drinks game
Doesn't have a name.
You would be to blame
If anyone came
And--'

'Oh, shut up!' remarked Dicky. 'You've been making that rot up all the
time we've been talking instead of listening properly.' Dicky hates
poetry. I don't mind it so very much myself, especially Macaulay's and
Kipling's and Noel's.

'There was a lot more--"lame" and "dame" and "name" and "game" an