the Moat House
was burned down, and all the supplies commandeered for the foe?"

Alice turned boldly to the soldier. "_Do_ you burn down farms?" she
asked.

"Well, not as a rule," he said, and he had the cheek to wink at Oswald,
but Oswald would not look at him. "We've not burned a farm since--oh,
not for years."

"A farm in Greek history it was, I expect," Denny murmured.

"Civilized warriors do not burn farms nowadays," Alice said, sternly,
"whatever they did in Greek times. You ought to know that."

The soldier said things had changed a good deal since Greek times. So we
said good-morning as quickly as we could: it is proper to be polite even
to your enemy, except just at the moments when it has really come to
rifles and bayonets or other weapons.

The soldier said, "So long!" in quite a modern voice, and we retraced
our footsteps in silence to the ambush--I mean the wood. Oswald did
think of lying in the ambush then, but it was rather wet, because of the
rain the night before, that H. O. said had brought the army-seed up. And
Alice walked very fast, saying nothing but "Hurry up, can't you!" and
dragging H. O. by one hand and Noel by the other. So we got into the
road.

Then Alice faced round and said, "This is all our fault. If we hadn't
sowed those dragon's teeth there wouldn't have been any invading army."

I am sorry to say Daisy said, "Never mind, Alice, dear. _We_ didn't sow
the nasty things, did we, Dora?"

But Denny told her it was just the same. It was _we_ had done it, so
long as it was any of us, especially if it got any of us into trouble.
Oswald was very pleased to see that the Dentist was beginning to
understand the meaning of true manliness, and about the honor of the
house of Bastable, though of course he is only a Foulkes. Yet it is
something to know he does his best to learn.

If you are very grown-up, or very clever, I dare say you will now have
thought of a great many things. If you have you need not say anything,
especially if you're reading this aloud to anybody. It's no good putting
in what you think in this part, because none of us thought anything of
the kind at the time.

We simply stood in the road without any of your clever thoughts, filled
with shame and distress to think of what might happen owing to the
dragon's teeth being sown. It was a lesson to us never to sow seed
without being quite sure what sort it is. This is particularly true of
the penny packets, which sometime