French plums in ornamental boxes with silk and velvet and gilding
on them. They were called prunes, but the prunes you buy at the grocer's
are quite different. But now there is seldom anything nice brought from
London, and the turkey and the prune people have forgotten Father's
address.

'How _can_ we restore those beastly fallen fortunes?' said Oswald.
'We've tried digging and writing and princesses and being editors.'

'And being bandits,' said H. O.

'When did you try that?' asked Dora quickly. 'You know I told you it was
wrong.'

'It wasn't wrong the way we did it,' said Alice, quicker still, before
Oswald could say, 'Who asked you to tell us anything about it?'
which would have been rude, and he is glad he didn't. 'We only caught
Albert-next-door.'

'Oh, Albert-next-door!' said Dora contemptuously, and I felt more
comfortable; for even after I didn't say, 'Who asked you, and cetera,'
I was afraid Dora was going to come the good elder sister over us. She
does that a jolly sight too often.

Dicky looked up from the paper he was reading and said, 'This sounds
likely,' and he read out--

'L100 secures partnership in lucrative business for sale of
useful patent. L10 weekly. No personal attendance necessary.
Jobbins, 300, Old Street Road.'

'I wish we could secure that partnership,' said Oswald. He is twelve,
and a very thoughtful boy for his age.

Alice looked up from her painting. She was trying to paint a fairy
queen's frock with green bice, and it wouldn't rub. There is something
funny about green bice. It never will rub off; no matter how expensive
your paintbox is--and even boiling water is very little use.

She said, 'Bother the bice! And, Oswald, it's no use thinking about
that. Where are we to get a hundred pounds?'

'Ten pounds a week is five pounds to us,' Oswald went on--he had done
the sum in his head while Alice was talking--'because partnership means
halves. It would be A1.'

Noel sat sucking his pencil--he had been writing poetry as usual. I saw
the first two lines--

I wonder why Green Bice
Is never very nice.

Suddenly he said, 'I wish a fairy would come down the chimney and drop a
jewel on the table--a jewel worth just a hundred pounds.'

'She might as well give you the hundred pounds while she was about it,'
said Dora.

'Or while she was about it she might as well give us five pounds a
week,' said Alice.

'Or fifty,' said I.

'Or five hundred,' said D