nda and the iron steps into the garden. And we went down very
quietly, and got into the chestnut-tree; and then I felt that we had
only been playing what Albert's uncle calls our favourite instrument--I
mean the Fool. For the house next door was as dark as dark. Then
suddenly we heard a sound--it came from the gate at the end of the
garden. All the gardens have gates; they lead into a kind of lane that
runs behind them. It is a sort of back way, very convenient when you
don't want to say exactly where you are going. We heard the gate at the
end of the next garden click, and Dicky nudged Alice so that she
would have fallen out of the tree if it had not been for Oswald's
extraordinary presence of mind. Oswald squeezed Alice's arm tight, and
we all looked; and the others were rather frightened because really we
had not exactly expected anything to happen except perhaps a light. But
now a muffled figure, shrouded in a dark cloak, came swiftly up the
path of the next-door garden. And we could see that under its cloak the
figure carried a mysterious burden. The figure was dressed to look like
a woman in a sailor hat.

We held our breath as it passed under the tree where we were, and then
it tapped very gently on the back door and was let in, and then a light
appeared in the window of the downstairs back breakfast-room. But the
shutters were up.

Dicky said, 'My eye!' and wouldn't the others be sick to think they
hadn't been in this! But Alice didn't half like it--and as she is a girl
I do not blame her. Indeed, I thought myself at first that perhaps
it would be better to retire for the present, and return later with a
strongly armed force.

'It's not burglars,' Alice whispered; 'the mysterious stranger was
bringing things in, not taking them out. They must be coiners--and oh,
Oswald!--don't let's! The things they coin with must hurt very much. Do
let's go to bed!'

But Dicky said he was going to see; if there was a reward for finding
out things like this he would like to have the reward.

'They locked the back door,' he whispered, 'I heard it go. And I could
look in quite well through the holes in the shutters and be back over
the wall long before they'd got the door open, even if they started to
do it at once.'

There were holes at the top of the shutters the shape of hearts, and the
yellow light came out through them as well as through the chinks of the
shutters.

Oswald said if Dicky went he should, because he was