icky might have fought and settled
them--though there were eleven, yet back to back you can always do it
against overwhelming numbers in a book--only Alice called out--

'Oswald, here's some more, come back!'

We went. Three big men were coming down the road, very red and hot, and
not amiable-looking. They stopped in front of the Benevolent Bar and
slowly read the wadding and red-stuff label.

Then one of them said he was blessed, or something like that, and
another said he was too. The third one said, 'Blessed or not, a drink's
a drink. Blue ribbon, though, by ----' (a word you ought not to say,
though it is in the Bible and the catechism as well). 'Let's have a
liquor, little missy.'

The dogs were growling, but Oswald thought it best not to take any
notice of what the dogs said, but to give these men each a drink. So he
did. They drank, but not as if they cared about it very much, and then
they set their glasses down on the table, a liberty no one else had
entered into, and began to try and chaff Oswald. Oswald said in an
undervoice to H. O.--

'Just take charge. I want to speak to the girls a sec. Call if you want
anything.' And then he drew the others away, to say he thought there'd
been enough of it, and considering the boys and new three men, perhaps
we'd better chuck it and go home. We'd been benevolent nearly four hours
anyway.

While this conversation and the objections of the others were going on,
H. O. perpetuated an act which nearly wrecked the Benevolent Bar.

Of course Oswald was not an eye or ear witness of what happened, but
from what H. O. said in the calmer moments of later life, I think this
was about what happened. One of the big disagreeable men said to H. O.--

'Ain't got such a thing as a drop o' spirit, 'ave yer?'

H. O. said no, we hadn't, only lemonade and tea.

'Lemonade and tea! blank' (bad word I told you about) 'and blazes,'
replied the bad character, for such he afterwards proved to be. 'What's
THAT then?'

He pointed to a bottle labelled Dewar's whisky, which stood on the table
near the spirit-kettle.

'Oh, is THAT what you want?' said H. O. kindly.

The man is understood to have said he should bloomin' well think so, but
H. O. is not sure about the 'bloomin'.

He held out his glass with about half the lemonade in it, and H. O.
generously filled up the tumbler out of the bottle, labelled Dewar's
whisky. The man took a great drink, and then suddenly he spat out what
happ