be calm till he tore
off the sheet and showed his knickerbockers and braces as a guarantee of
good faith. Alice put her hair up, and got a skirt, and a large
handkerchief to cry in, and was a hapless maiden imprisoned in a tower
because she would not marry the wicked Baron. Oswald instantly took the
part of the wicked Baron, and Dicky was the virtuous lover of low
degree, and they had a splendid combat, and Dicky carried off the lady.
Of course, that was the proper end to the story, and Oswald had to
pretend to be beaten, which was not the case.

Dicky was Louis XVI. watch-making while waiting for the guillotine to
happen. So we were the guillotine, and he was executed in the paved
yard.

Noel was an imprisoned troubadour dressed in bright antimacassars, and
he fired off quite a lot of poetry at us before we could get the door
open, which was most unfair.

H. O. was a clown. He had no fancy dress except flour and two Turkish
towels pinned on to look like trousers, but he put the flour all over
himself, and it took the rest of the day to clean him.

It was when Alice was drying the hair-brushes that she had washed after
brushing the flour out of Noel's hair in the back-garden that Oswald
said:

'_I_ know what that room was made for.'

And everyone said, 'What?' which is not manners, but your brothers and
sisters do not mind because it saves time.

'Why, _coiners_,' said Oswald. 'Don't you see? They kept a sentinel at
the door, that _is_ a door, and if anyone approached he whispered
"_Cave_."'

'But why have iron bars?'

'In extra safety,' said Oswald; 'and if their nefarious fires were not
burning he need not say "_Cave_" at all. It's no use saying anything for
nothing.'

It is curious, but the others did not seem to see this clear
distinguishedness. All people have not the same fine brains.

But all the same the idea rankled in their hearts, and one day father
came and took Dicky up to London about that tooth of his, and when
Dicky came back he said:

'Look here, talking of coiners, there was a man in St. Swithin's Lane
to-day selling little bottles of yellow stuff, and he rubbed some of it
on a penny, and it turned the penny into a half-crown before your
eyes--a new half-crown! It was a penny a bottle, so I bought three
bottles.'

'I always thought the plant for coining was very expensive,' said Alice.

'Ah! they tell you that to keep you from doing it, because of its being
a crime,' said Dicky. 'B