There are some of Mr. Sandal's.'

The man hesitated.

'It'll make a better disguise,' said Oswald in a low, significant
whisper, and turned tactfully away, so as not to make the stranger feel
awkward.

Dicky got the clothes, and the stranger changed in the back-kitchen. The
only spirit Oswald could find was spirits of salts, which the stranger
said was poison, and spirits of camphor. Oswald gave him some of this on
sugar; he knows it is a good thing when you have taken cold. The
stranger hated it. He changed in the back-kitchen, and while he was
doing it we tried to light the kitchen fire, but it would not; so Dicky
went up to ask Alice for some matches, and finding the girls had not
gone to bed as ordered, but contrarily dressed themselves, he let them
come down. And then, of course, there was no reason why they should not
light the fire. They did.

When the unfortunate one came out of the back-kitchen he looked quite a
decent chap, though still blue in patches from the lining of his hat.
Dicky whispered to me what a difference clothes made.

He made a polite though jerky bow to the girls, and Dora said:

'How do you do? I hope you are quite well.'

'As well as can be expected,' replied the now tidy outcast, 'considering
what I've gone through.'

'Tea or cocoa?' said Dora. 'And do you like cheese or cold bacon best?'

'I'll leave it to you entirely,' he answered. And he added, without a
pause, 'I'm sure I can trust you.'

'Indeed you can,' said Dora earnestly; 'you needn't be a bit afraid.
You're perfectly safe with us.'

He opened his eyes at this.

'He didn't expect such kindness,' Alice whispered. 'Poor man! he's quite
overcome.'

We gave him cocoa, and cheese, and bacon, and butter and bread, and he
ate a great deal, with his feet in Mr. Sandal's all-wool boots on the
kitchen fender.

The girls wrung the water out of his clothes, and hung them on the
clothes-horse on the other side of the fire.

'I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you,' he said; 'real charity I call
this. I shan't forget it, I assure you. I ought to apologise for
knocking you up like this, but I'd been hours tramping through this
precious marsh of yours wet to the skin, and not a morsel of food since
mid-day. And yours was the first light I'd seen for a couple of hours.'

'I'm very glad it _was_ us you knocked up,' said Alice.

'So am I,' said he; 'I might have knocked at a great many doors before I
got such a welcome. I'm quit