aid, 'and see if we see the light again.'

'They might have been burglars,' Noel said. He was sucking the last bit
of his macaroni. 'You know the people next door are very grand. They
won't know us--and they go out in a real private carriage sometimes. And
they have an "At Home" day, and people come in cabs. I daresay they have
piles of plate and jewellery and rich brocades, and furs of price and
things like that. Let us keep watch to-night.'

'It's no use watching to-night,' Dicky said; 'if it's only burglars they
won't come again. But there are other things besides burglars that are
discovered in empty houses where lights are seen moving.'

'You mean coiners,' said Oswald at once. 'I wonder what the reward is
for setting the police on their track?'

Dicky thought it ought to be something fat, because coiners are always
a desperate gang; and the machinery they make the coins with is so heavy
and handy for knocking down detectives.

Then it was tea-time, and we went in; and Dora and H. O. had clubbed
their money together and bought a melon; quite a big one, and only a
little bit squashy at one end. It was very good, and then we washed the
seeds and made things with them and with pins and cotton. And nobody
said any more about watching the house next door.

Only when we went to bed Dicky took off his coat and waistcoat, but he
stopped at his braces, and said--

'What about the coiners?'

Oswald had taken off his collar and tie, and he was just going to say
the same, so he said, 'Of course I meant to watch, only my collar's
rather tight, so I thought I'd take it off first.'

Dicky said he did not think the girls ought to be in it, because there
might be danger, but Oswald reminded him that they had promised Alice,
and that a promise is a sacred thing, even when you'd much rather
not. So Oswald got Alice alone under pretence of showing her a
caterpillar--Dora does not like them, and she screamed and ran away when
Oswald offered to show it her. Then Oswald explained, and Alice agreed
to come and watch if she could. This made us later than we ought to have
been, because Alice had to wait till Dora was quiet and then creep out
very slowly, for fear of the boards creaking. The girls sleep with their
room-door open for fear of burglars. Alice had kept on her clothes
under her nightgown when Dora wasn't looking, and presently we got down,
creeping past Father's study, and out at the glass door that leads on
to the vera