jolly straight young Britons, and it is something to be called that
by a man you really respect. It doesn't matter so much what the other
people say--the people you don't really care about.

When we told our Indian uncle about it he said, 'Nonsense! you ought
never to try and shield a criminal.' But that was not at all the way we
felt about it at the time when the criminal was there (or we thought he
was), all wet, and hunted, and miserable, with people 'out after him.'
He meant his friends who were expecting him, but we thought he meant
police. It is very hard sometimes to know exactly what is right. If what
_feels_ right _isn't_ right, how are you to know, I wonder.

* * * * *

The only comforting thing about it all is that we heard next day that
the soldiers had got away from the brown bicycle beast after all. I
suppose it came home to them suddenly that they _were_ two to one, and
they shoved him into a ditch and got away. They were never caught; I am
very glad. And I suppose _that's_ wrong too--so many things are. But I
_am_.

THE ARSENICATORS

A TALE OF CRIME

It was Mrs. Beale who put it into our heads that Miss Sandal lived plain
because she was poor. We knew she thought high, because that is what you
jolly well have to do if you are a vegetationist and an all-wooler, and
those sort of things.

And we tried to get money for her, like we had once tried to do for
ourselves. And we succeeded by means that have been told alone in
another place in getting two golden pounds.

Then, of course, we began to wonder what we had better do with the two
pounds now we had got them.

'Put them in the savings-bank,' Dora said.

Alice said:

'Why, when we could have them to look at?'

Noel thought we ought to buy her something beautiful to adorn Miss
Sandal's bare dwelling.

H. O. thought we might spend it on nice tinned and potted things from
the stores, to make the plain living and high thinking go down better.

But Oswald knew that, however nice the presents are that other people
buy for you, it is really more satisfying to have the chink to spend
exactly as you like.

Then Dicky said:

'I don't believe in letting money lie idle. Father always says it's bad
business.'

'They give interest at the bank, don't they?' Dora said.

'Yes; tuppence a year, or some rot like that! We ought to go into trade
with it, and try to make more of it. That's what we ought to do.'