ht by both arms, and we marched him home
down the hill in a hollow square of five.

He wanted to tell us about the guy, but we made him see that it was not
proper for prisoners to talk to the guard, especially about guys that
the prisoner had been told not to go after because of his cold.

When we got to where we live he said, 'All right, I don't want to tell
you. You'll wish I had afterwards. You never saw such a guy.'

'I can see _you_!' said H. O. It was very rude, and Oswald told him so
at once, because it is his duty as an elder brother. But H. O. is very
young and does not know better yet, and besides it wasn't bad for H. O.

Albert-next-door said, 'You haven't any manners, and I want to go in to
my tea. Let go of me!'

But Alice told him, quite kindly, that he was not going in to his tea,
but coming with us.

'I'm not,' said Albert-next-door; 'I'm going home. Leave go! I've got
a bad cold. You're making it worse.' Then he tried to cough, which was
very silly, because we'd seen him in the morning, and he'd told us where
the cold was that he wasn't to go out with. When he had tried to cough,
he said, 'Leave go of me! You see my cold's getting worse.'

'You should have thought of that before,' said Dicky; 'you're coming in
with us.'

'Don't be a silly,' said Noel; 'you know we told you at the very
beginning that resistance was useless. There is no disgrace in yielding.
We are five to your one.'

By this time Eliza had opened the door, and we thought it best to take
him in without any more parlaying. To parley with a prisoner is not done
by bandits.

Directly we got him safe into the nursery, H. O. began to jump about and
say, 'Now you're a prisoner really and truly!'

And Albert-next-door began to cry. He always does. I wonder he didn't
begin long before--but Alice fetched him one of the dried fruits we
gave Father for his birthday. It was a green walnut. I have noticed
the walnuts and the plums always get left till the last in the box; the
apricots go first, and then the figs and pears; and the cherries, if
there are any.

So he ate it and shut up. Then we explained his position to him, so that
there should be no mistake, and he couldn't say afterwards that he had
not understood.

'There will be no violence,' said Oswald--he was now Captain of the
Bandits, because we all know H. O. likes to be Chaplain when we
play prisoners--'no violence. But you will be confined in a dark,
subterranean dungeon wh