e; Pincher was out with Eliza, and we
talked about robbers. And Dora thought it would be a dreadful trade, but
Dicky said--

'I think it would be very interesting. And you would only rob rich
people, and be very generous to the poor and needy, like Claude Duval.'
Dora said, 'It is wrong to be a robber.'

'Yes,' said Alice, 'you would never know a happy hour. Think of trying
to sleep with the stolen jewels under your bed, and remembering all the
quantities of policemen and detectives that there are in the world!'

'There are ways of being robbers that are not wrong,' said Noel; 'if you
can rob a robber it is a right act.'

'But you can't,' said Dora; 'he is too clever, and besides, it's wrong
anyway.'

'Yes you can, and it isn't; and murdering him with boiling oil is a
right act, too, so there!' said Noel. 'What about Ali Baba? Now then!'
And we felt it was a score for Noel.

'What would you do if there _was_ a robber?' said Alice.

H. O. said he would kill him with boiling oil; but Alice explained that
she meant a real robber--now--this minute--in the house.

Oswald and Dicky did not say; but Noel said he thought it would only be
fair to ask the robber quite politely and quietly to go away, and then
if he didn't you could deal with him.

Now what I am going to tell you is a very strange and wonderful thing,
and I hope you will be able to believe it. I should not, if a boy told
me, unless I knew him to be a man of honour, and perhaps not then unless
he gave his sacred word. But it is true, all the same, and it only shows
that the days of romance and daring deeds are not yet at an end.

Alice was just asking Noel _how_ he would deal with the robber who
wouldn't go if he was asked politely and quietly, when we heard a noise
downstairs--quite a plain noise, not the kind of noise you fancy you
hear. It was like somebody moving a chair. We held our breath and
listened and then came another noise, like some one poking a fire.
Now, you remember there was no one _to_ poke a fire or move a chair
downstairs, because Eliza and Father were both out. They could not have
come in without our hearing them, because the front door is as hard to
shut as the back one, and whichever you go in by you have to give a slam
that you can hear all down the street.

H. O. and Alice and Dora caught hold of each other's blankets and looked
at Dicky and Oswald, and every one was quite pale. And Noel whispered--

'It's ghosts, I know it is