hailed him, and explained it all to him and gave him a drink, and asked
him to call as he came back. He liked it all, and said we were a real
good sort. How different from the man who wanted the beer. Then he went
on.

One thing I didn't like, and that was the way boys began to gather. Of
course we could not refuse to give drinks to any traveller who was old
enough to ask for it, but when one boy had had three glasses of lemonade
and asked for another, Oswald said--

'I think you've had jolly well enough. You can't be really thirsty after
all that lot.'

The boy said, 'Oh, can't I? You'll just see if I can't,' and went away.
Presently he came back with four other boys, all bigger than Oswald; and
they all asked for lemonade. Oswald gave it to the four new ones, but he
was determined in his behaviour to the other one, and wouldn't give him
a drop. Then the five of them went and sat on a gate a little way off
and kept laughing in a nasty way, and whenever a boy went by they called
out--

'I say, 'ere's a go,' and as often as not the new boy would hang about
with them. It was disquieting, for though they had nearly all had
lemonade we could see it had not made them friendly.

A great glorious glow of goodness gladdened (those go all together and
are called alliteration) our hearts when we saw our own tramp coming
down the road. The dogs did not growl at him as they had at the boys or
the beer-man. (I did not say before that we had the dogs with us, but
of course we had, because we had promised never to go out without them.)
Oswald said, 'Hullo,' and the tramp said, 'Hullo.' Then Alice said, 'You
see we've taken your advice; we're giving free drinks. Doesn't it all
look nice?'

'It does that,' said the tramp. 'I don't mind if I do.'

So we gave him two glasses of lemonade succeedingly, and thanked him
for giving us the idea. He said we were very welcome, and if we'd no
objection he'd sit down a bit and put on a pipe. He did, and after
talking a little more he fell asleep. Drinking anything seemed to end in
sleep with him. I always thought it was only beer and things made people
sleepy, but he was not so. When he was asleep he rolled into the ditch,
but it did not wake him up.

The boys were getting very noisy, and they began to shout things, and to
make silly noises with their mouths, and when Oswald and Dicky went over
to them and told them to just chuck it, they were worse than ever.
I think perhaps Oswald and D