nful, but of course we did not say anything. Then he laughed
till I thought he would never stop.

I think it was the sherry, because I am sure I have read somewhere about
'wine that maketh glad the heart of man'. He had only a very little,
which shows that it was a good after-dinner wine, stimulating, and yet
...I forget the rest.

But when he had done laughing he said, 'It's all right, kids. Only don't
do it again. The wine trade is overcrowded; and besides, I thought you
promised to consult me before going into business?'

'Before buying one I thought you meant,' said Dicky. 'This was only on
commission.' And Father laughed again. I am glad we got the Castilian
Amoroso, because it did really cheer Father up, and you cannot always do
that, however hard you try, even if you make jokes, or give him a comic
paper.

CHAPTER 12. THE NOBLENESS OF OSWALD

The part about his nobleness only comes at the end, but you would
not understand it unless you knew how it began. It began, like nearly
everything about that time, with treasure-seeking.

Of course as soon as we had promised to consult my Father about business
matters we all gave up wanting to go into business. I don't know how it
is, but having to consult about a thing with grown-up people, even
the bravest and the best, seems to make the thing not worth doing
afterwards.

We don't mind Albert's uncle chipping in sometimes when the thing's
going on, but we are glad he never asked us to promise to consult him
about anything. Yet Oswald saw that my Father was quite right; and I
daresay if we had had that hundred pounds we should have spent it on the
share in that lucrative business for the sale of useful patent, and then
found out afterwards that we should have done better to spend the money
in some other way. My Father says so, and he ought to know. We had
several ideas about that time, but having so little chink always stood
in the way.

This was the case with H. O.'s idea of setting up a coconut-shy on this
side of the Heath, where there are none generally. We had no sticks
or wooden balls, and the greengrocer said he could not book so many as
twelve dozen coconuts without Mr Bastable's written order. And as we did
not wish to consult my Father it was decided to drop it. And when Alice
dressed up Pincher in some of the dolls' clothes and we made up our
minds to take him round with an organ as soon as we had taught him to
dance, we were stopped at once by Dick