'For the sick poet, with my love,' and was driven off.

Gentle reader, I will not conceal from you what Oswald did. He knew all
about not disgracing the family, and he did not like doing what I am
going to say: and they were really Noel's flowers, only he could not
have sent them to Hastings, and Oswald knew he would say 'Yes' if Oswald
asked him. Oswald sacrificed his family pride because of his little
sister's danger. I do not say he was a noble boy--I just tell you what
he did, and you can decide for yourself about the nobleness.

He put on his oldest clothes--they're much older than any you would
think he had if you saw him when he was tidy--and he took those yellow
chrysanthemums and he walked with them to Greenwich Station and waited
for the trains bringing people from London. He sold those flowers in
penny bunches and got tenpence. Then he went to the telegraph office at
Lewisham, and said to the lady there:

'A little girl gave you a bad sixpence yesterday. Here are six good
pennies.'

The lady said she had not noticed it, and never mind, but Oswald knew
that 'Honesty is the best Policy', and he refused to take back the
pennies. So at last she said she should put them in the plate on Sunday.
She is a very nice lady. I like the way she does her hair.

Then Oswald went home to Alice and told her, and she hugged him, and
said he was a dear, good, kind boy, and he said 'Oh, it's all right.'

We bought peppermint bullseyes with the fourpence I had over, and the
others wanted to know where we got the money, but we would not tell.

Only afterwards when Noel came home we told him, because they were his
flowers, and he said it was quite right. He made some poetry about it. I
only remember one bit of it.

The noble youth of high degree
Consents to play a menial part,
All for his sister Alice's sake,
Who was so dear to his faithful heart.

But Oswald himself has never bragged about it. We got no treasure out of
this, unless you count the peppermint bullseyes.

CHAPTER 13. THE ROBBER AND THE BURGLAR

A day or two after Noel came back from Hastings there was snow; it was
jolly. And we cleared it off the path. A man to do it is sixpence at
least, and you should always save when you can. A penny saved is a penny
earned. And then we thought it would be nice to clear it off the top of
the portico, where it lies so thick, and the edges as if they had been
cut with a knife. And just as we had got o