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So when the Uncle left, Father saw him to the door and let him out, and then went back to the study, looking very sad, Dora says.
As the poor Indian came down our steps he saw me there at the gate.
I did not mind his being poor, and I said, ‘Good evening, Uncle,’ just as politely as though he had been about to ascend into one of the gilded chariots of the rich and affluent, instead of having to walk to the station a quarter of a mile in the mud, unless he had the money for a tram fare.
‘Good evening, Uncle.’ I said it again, for he stood staring at me. I don’t suppose he was used to politeness from boys—some boys are anything but—especially to the Aged Poor.
So I said, ‘Good evening, Uncle,’ yet once again. Then he said—
‘Time you were in bed, young man. Eh!—what?’
Then I saw I must speak plainly with him, man to man. So I did. I said—
‘You’ve been dining with my Father, and we couldn’t help hearing you say the dinner was shocking. So we thought as you’re an Indian, perhaps you’re very poor’—I didn’t like to tell him we had heard the dreadful truth from his own lips, so I went on, ‘because of “Lo, the poor Indian”—you know—and you can’t get a good dinner every day. And we are very sorry if you’re poor; and won’t you come and have dinner with us to-morrow—with us children, I mean? It’s a very, very good dinner—rabbit, and hardbake, and coconut—and you needn’t mind us knowing you’re poor, because we know honourable poverty is no disgrace, and—’ I could have gone on much longer, but he interrupted me to say—‘Upon my word! And what’s your name, eh?’
‘Oswald Bastable,’ I said; and I do hope you people who are reading this story have not guessed before that I was Oswald all the time.
‘Oswald Bastable, eh? Bless my soul!’ said the poor Indian. ‘Yes, I’ll dine with you, Mr Oswald Bastable, with all the pleasure in life. Very kind and cordial invitation, I’m sure. Good night, sir. At one o’clock, I presume?’
‘Yes, at one,’ I said. ‘Good night, sir.’
Then I went in and told the others, and we wrote a paper and put it on the boy’s dressing-table, and it said—
‘The poor Indian is coming at one. He seemed very grateful to me for my kindness.’
We did not tell Father that the Uncle was coming to dinner with us, for the polite reason that I have explained before. But we had to tell Eliza; so we said a friend was coming to dinner and we wanted everything very nice. I think she thought it was Albert-next-door, but she was in a good temper that day, and she agreed to cook the rabbit and to make a pudding with currants in it. And when one o’clock came the Indian Uncle came too. I let him in and helped him off with his greatcoat, which was all furry inside, and took him straight to the nursery. We were to have dinner there as usual, for we had decided from the first that he would enjoy himself more if he was not made a stranger of. We agreed to treat him as one of ourselves, because if we were too polite, he might think it was our pride because he was poor.
He shook hands with us all and asked our ages, and what schools we went to, and shook his head when we said we were having a holiday just now. I felt rather uncomfortable—I always do when they talk about schools—and I couldn’t think of anything to say to show him we meant to treat him as one of ourselves. I did ask if he played cricket. He said he had not played lately. And then no one said anything till dinner came in. We had all washed our faces and hands and brushed our hair before he came in, and we all looked very nice, especially Oswald, who had had his hair cut that very morning. When Eliza had brought in the rabbit and gone out again, we looked at each other in silent despair, like in books. It seemed as if it were going to be just a dull dinner like the one the poor Indian had had the night before; only, of course, the things to eat would be nicer. Dicky kicked Oswald under the table to make him say something—and he had his new boots on, too!—but Oswald did not kick back; then the Uncle asked—
‘Do you carve, sir, or shall I?’
Suddenly Alice said—
‘Would you like grown-up dinner, Uncle, or play-dinner?’
He did not hesitate a moment, but said, ‘Play-dinner, by all means. Eh!—what?’ and then we knew it was all right.
So we at once showed the Uncle how to be a dauntless hunter. The rabbit was the deer we had slain in the green forest with our trusty yew bows, and we toasted the joints of it, when the Uncle had carved it, on bits of firewood sharpened to a point. The Uncle’s piece got a little burnt, but he said it was delicious, and he said game was always nicer when you had killed it yourself. When Eliza had taken away the rabbit bones and brought in the pudding, we waited till she had gone out and shut the door, and then we put the dish down on the floor and slew the pudding in the dish in the good old-fashioned way. It was a wild boar at bay, and very hard indeed to kill, even with forks. The Uncle was very fierce indeed with the pudding, and jumped and howled when he speared it, but when it came to his turn to be helped, he said, ‘No, thank you; think of my liver. Eh!—what?’
But he had some almonds and raisins—when we had climbed to the top of the chest of drawers to pluck them from the boughs of the great trees; and he had a fig from the cargo that the rich merchants brought in their ship—the long drawer was the ship—and the rest of us had the sweets and the coconut. It was a very glorious and beautiful feast, and when it was over we said we hoped it was better than the dinner last night. And he said:
‘I never enjoyed a dinner more.’ He was too polite to say what he really thought about Father’s dinner. And we saw that though he might be poor, he was a true gentleman.
He smoked a cigar while we finished up what there was left to eat, and told us about tiger shooting and about elephants. We asked him about wigwams, and wampum, and mocassins, and beavers, but he did not seem to know, or else he was shy about talking of the wonders of his native land.
We liked him very much indeed, and when he was going at last, Alice nudged me, and I said—‘There’s one and threepence farthing left out of our half-sovereign. Will you take it, please, because we do like you very much indeed, and we don’t want it, really; and we would rather you had it.’ And I put the money into his hand.
‘I’ll take the threepenny-bit,’ he said, turning the money over and looking at it, ‘but I couldn’t rob you of the rest. By the way, where did you get the money for this most royal spread—half a sovereign you said—eh, what?’
We told him all about the different ways we had looked for treasure, and when we had been telling some time he sat down, to listen better and at last we told him how Alice had played at divining-rod, and how it really had found a half-sovereign.
Then he said he would like to see her do it again. But we explained that the rod would only show gold and silver, and that we were quite sure there was no more gold in the house, because we happened to have looked very carefully.
‘Well, silver, then,’ said he; ‘let’s hide the plate-basket, and little Alice shall make the divining-rod find it. Eh!—what?’
‘There isn’t any silver in the plate-basket now,’ Dora said. ‘Eliza asked me to borrow the silver spoons and forks for your dinner last night from Albert-next-door’s Mother. Father never notices, but she thought it would be nicer for you. Our own silver went to have the dents taken out; and I don’t think Father could afford to pay the man for doing it, for the silver hasn’t come back.’
‘Bless my soul!’ said the Uncle again, looking at the hole in the big chair that we burnt when we had Guy Fawkes’ Day indoors. ‘And how much pocket-money do you get? Eh!—what?’
‘We don’t have any now,’ said Alice; ‘but indeed we don’t want the other shilling. We’d much rather you had it, wouldn’t we?’
And the rest of us said, ‘Yes.’ The Uncle wouldn’t take it, but he asked a lot of questions, and at last he went away. And when he went he said—
‘Well, youngsters, I’ve enjoyed myself very much. I shan’t forget your kind hospitality. Perhaps the poor Indian may be in a position to ask you all to dinner some day.’
Oswald said if he ever could we should like to come very much, but he was not to trouble to get such a nice dinner as ours, because we could do very well with cold mutton and rice pudding. We do not like these things, but Oswald knows how to behave. Then the poor Indian went away.
We had not got any treasure by this party, but we had had a very good time, and I am sure the Uncle enjoyed himself.
We were so sorry he was gone that we could none of us eat much tea; but we did not mind, because we had pleased the poor Indian and enjoyed ourselves too. Besides, as Dora said, ‘A contented mind is a continual feast,’ so it did not matter about not wanting tea.
Only H. O. did not seem to think a continual feast was a contented mind, and Eliza gave him a powder in what was left of the red-currant jelly Father had for the nasty dinner.
But the rest of us were quite well, and I think it must have been the coconut with H. O. We hoped nothing had disagreed with the Uncle, but we never knew.
CHAPTER 16. THE END OF THE TREASURE-SEEKING
Now it is coming near the end of our treasure-seeking, and the end was so wonderful that now nothing is like it used to be. It is like as if our fortunes had been in an earthquake, and after those, you know, everything comes out wrong-way up.
The day after the Uncle speared the pudding with us opened in gloom and sadness. But you never know. It was destined to be a day when things happened. Yet no sign of this appeared in the early morning. Then all was misery and upsetness. None of us felt quite well; I don’t know why: and Father had one of his awful colds, so Dora persuaded him not to go to London, but to stay cosy and warm in the study, and she made him some gruel. She makes it better than Eliza does; Eliza’s gruel is all little lumps, and when you suck them it is dry oatmeal inside.
We kept as quiet as we could, and I made H. O. do some lessons, like the G. B. had advised us to. But it was very dull. There are some days when you seem to have got to the end of all the things that could ever possibly happen to you, and you feel you will spend all the rest of your life doing dull things just the same way. Days like this are generally wet days. But, as I said, you never know.
Then Dicky said if things went on like this he should run away to sea, and Alice said she thought it would be rather nice to go into a convent. H. O. was a little disagreeable because of the powder Eliza had given him, so he tried to read two books at once, one with each eye, just because Noel wanted one of the books, which was very selfish of him, so it only made his headache worse. H. O. is getting old enough to learn by experience that it is wrong to be selfish, and when he complained about his head Oswald told him whose fault it was, because I am older than he is, and it is my duty to show him where he is wrong. But he began to cry, and then Oswald had to cheer him up because of Father wanting to be quiet. So Oswald said—
‘They’ll eat H. O. if you don’t look out!’ And Dora said Oswald was too bad.
Of course Oswald was not going to interfere again, so he went to look out of the window and see the trams go by, and by and by H. O. came and looked out too, and Oswald, who knows when to be generous and forgiving, gave him a piece of blue pencil and two nibs, as good as new, to keep.
As they were looking out at the rain splashing on the stones in the street they saw a four-wheeled cab come lumbering up from the way the station is. Oswald called out—
‘Here comes the coach of the Fairy Godmother. It’ll stop here, you see if it doesn’t!’
So they all came to the window to look. Oswald had only said that about stopping and he was stricken with wonder and amaze when the cab really did stop. It had boxes on the top and knobby parcels sticking out of the window, and it was something like going away to the seaside and something like the gentleman who takes things about in a carriage with the wooden shutters up, to sell to the drapers’ shops. The cabman got down, and some one inside handed out ever so many parcels of different shapes and sizes, and the cabman stood holding them in his arms and grinning over them.
Dora said, ‘It is a pity some one doesn’t tell him this isn’t the house.’ And then from inside the cab some one put out a foot feeling for the step, like a tortoise’s foot coming out from under his shell when you are holding him off the ground, and then a leg came and more parcels, and then Noel cried—
‘It’s the poor Indian!’
And it was.
Eliza opened the door, and we were all leaning over the banisters. Father heard the noise of parcels and boxes in the hall, and he came out without remembering how bad his cold was. If you do that yourself when you have a cold they call you careless and naughty. Then we heard the poor Indian say to Father—
‘I say, Dick, I dined with your kids yesterday—as I daresay they’ve told you. Jolliest little cubs I ever saw! Why didn’t you let me see them the other night? The eldest is the image of poor Janey—and as to young Oswald, he’s a man! If he’s not a man, I’m a nigger! Eh!—what? And Dick, I say, I shouldn’t wonder if I could find a friend to put a bit into that business of yours—eh?’
Then he and Father went into the study and the door was shut—and we went down and looked at the parcels. Some were done up in old, dirty newspapers, and tied with bits of rag, and some were in brown paper and string from the shops, and there were boxes. We wondered if the Uncle had come to stay and this was his luggage, or whether it was to sell. Some of it smelt of spices, like merchandise—and one bundle Alice felt certain was a bale. We heard a hand on the knob of the study door after a bit, and Alice said—
‘Fly!’ and we all got away but H. O., and the Uncle caught him by the leg as he was trying to get upstairs after us.
‘Peeping at the baggage, eh?’ said the Uncle, and the rest of us came down because it would have been dishonourable to leave H. O. alone in a scrape, and we wanted to see what was in the parcels.
‘I didn’t touch,’ said H. O. ‘Are you coming to stay? I hope you are.’
‘No harm done if you did touch,’ said the good, kind, Indian man to all of us. ‘For all these parcels are for you.’
I have several times told you about our being dumb with amazement and terror and joy, and things like that, but I never remember us being dumber than we were when he said this.
The Indian Uncle went on: ‘I told an old friend of mine what a pleasant dinner I had with you, and about the threepenny-bit, and the divining-rod, and all that, and he sent all these odds and ends as presents for you. Some of the things came from India.’
‘Have you come from India, Uncle?’ Noel asked; and when he said ‘Yes’ we were all very much surprised, for we never thought of his being that sort of Indian. We thought he was the Red kind, and of course his not being accounted for his ignorance of beavers and things.
He got Eliza to help, and we took all the parcels into the nursery and he undid them and undid them and undid them, till the papers lay thick on the floor. Father came too and sat in the Guy Fawkes chair. I cannot begin to tell you all the things that kind friend of Uncle’s had sent us. He must be a very agreeable person.
There were toys for the kids and model engines for Dick and me, and a lot of books, and Japanese china tea-sets for the girls, red and white and gold—there were sweets by the pound and by the box—and long yards and yards of soft silk from India, to make frocks for the girls—and a real Indian sword for Oswald and a book of Japanese pictures for Noel, and some ivory chess men for Dicky: the castles of the chessmen are elephant-and-castles. There is a railway station called that; I never knew what it meant before. The brown paper and string parcels had boxes of games in them—and big cases of preserved fruits and things. And the shabby old newspaper parcels and the boxes had the Indian things in. I never saw so many beautiful things before. There were carved fans and silver bangles and strings of amber beads, and necklaces of uncut gems—turquoises and garnets, the Uncle said they were—and shawls and scarves of silk, and cabinets of brown and gold, and ivory boxes and silver trays, and brass things. The Uncle kept saying, ‘This is for you, young man,’ or ‘Little Alice will like this fan,’ or ‘Miss Dora would look well in this green silk, I think. Eh!—what?’
And Father looked on as if it was a dream, till the Uncle suddenly gave him an ivory paper-knife and a box of cigars, and said, ‘My old friend sent you these, Dick; he’s an old friend of yours too, he says.’ And he winked at my Father, for H. O. and I saw him. And my Father winked back, though he has always told us not to.
That was a wonderful day. It was a treasure, and no mistake! I never saw such heaps and heaps of presents, like things out of a fairy-tale—and even Eliza had a shawl. Perhaps she deserved it, for she did cook the rabbit and the pudding; and Oswald says it is not her fault if her nose turns up and she does not brush her hair. I do not think Eliza likes brushing things. It is the same with the carpets. But Oswald tries to make allowances even for people who do not wash their ears.
The Indian Uncle came to see us often after that, and his friend always sent us something. Once he tipped us a sovereign each—the Uncle brought it; and once he sent us money to go to the Crystal Palace, and the Uncle took us; and another time to a circus; and when Christmas was near the Uncle said—
‘You remember when I dined with you, some time ago, you promised to dine with me some day, if I could ever afford to give a dinner-party. Well, I’m going to have one—a Christmas party. Not on Christmas Day, because every one goes home then—but on the day after. Cold mutton and rice pudding. You’ll come? Eh!—what?’
We said we should be delighted, if Father had no objection, because that is the proper thing to say, and the poor Indian, I mean the Uncle, said, ‘No, your Father won’t object—he’s coming too, bless your soul!’
We all got Christmas presents for the Uncle. The girls made him a handkerchief case and a comb bag, out of some of the pieces of silk he had given them. I got him a knife with three blades; H. O. got a siren whistle, a very strong one, and Dicky joined with me in the knife, and Noel would give the Indian ivory box that Uncle’s friend had sent on the wonderful Fairy Cab day. He said it was the very nicest thing he had, and he was sure Uncle wouldn’t mind his not having bought it with his own money.
I think Father’s business must have got better—perhaps Uncle’s friend put money in it and that did it good, like feeding the starving. Anyway we all had new suits, and the girls had the green silk from India made into frocks, and on Boxing Day we went in two cabs—Father and the girls in one, and us boys in the other.
We wondered very much where the Indian Uncle lived, because we had not been told. And we thought when the cab began to go up the hill towards the Heath that perhaps the Uncle lived in one of the poky little houses up at the top of Greenwich. But the cab went right over the Heath and in at some big gates, and through a shrubbery all white with frost like a fairy forest, because it was Christmas time. And at last we stopped before one of those jolly, big, ugly red houses with a lot of windows, that are so comfortable inside, and on the steps was the Indian Uncle, looking very big and grand, in a blue cloth coat and yellow sealskin waistcoat, with a bunch of seals hanging from it.
‘I wonder whether he has taken a place as butler here?’ said Dicky.
‘A poor, broken-down man—’
Noel thought it was very likely, because he knew that in these big houses there were always thousands of stately butlers.
The Uncle came down the steps and opened the cab door himself, which I don’t think butlers would expect to have to do. And he took us in. It was a lovely hall, with bear and tiger skins on the floor, and a big clock with the faces of the sun and moon dodging out when it was day or night, and Father Time with a scythe coming out at the hours, and the name on it was ‘Flint. Ashford. 1776’; and there was a fox eating a stuffed duck in a glass case, and horns of stags and other animals over the doors.
‘We’ll just come into my study first,’ said the Uncle, ‘and wish each other a Merry Christmas.’ So then we knew he wasn’t the butler, but it must be his own house, for only the master of the house has a study.
His study was not much like Father’s. It had hardly any books, but swords and guns and newspapers and a great many boots, and boxes half unpacked, with more Indian things bulging out of them.
We gave him our presents and he was awfully pleased. Then he gave us his Christmas presents. You must be tired of hearing about presents, but I must remark that all the Uncle’s presents were watches; there was a watch for each of us, with our names engraved inside, all silver except H. O.‘s, and that was a Waterbury, ‘To match his boots,’ the Uncle said. I don’t know what he meant.
Then the Uncle looked at Father, and Father said, ‘You tell them, sir.’
So the Uncle coughed and stood up and made a speech. He said—
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are met together to discuss an important subject which has for some weeks engrossed the attention of the honourable member opposite and myself.’
I said, ‘Hear, hear,’ and Alice whispered, ‘What happened to the guinea-pig?’ Of course you know the answer to that.
The Uncle went on—
‘I am going to live in this house, and as it’s rather big for me, your Father has agreed that he and you shall come and live with me. And so, if you’re agreeable, we’re all going to live here together, and, please God, it’ll be a happy home for us all. Eh!—what?’
He blew his nose and kissed us all round. As it was Christmas I did not mind, though I am much too old for it on other dates. Then he said, ‘Thank you all very much for your presents; but I’ve got a present here I value more than anything else I have.’
I thought it was not quite polite of him to say so, till I saw that what he valued so much was a threepenny-bit on his watch-chain, and, of course, I saw it must be the one we had given him.
He said, ‘You children gave me that when you thought I was the poor Indian, and I’ll keep it as long as I live. And I’ve asked some friends to help us to be jolly, for this is our house-warming. Eh!—what?’
Then he shook Father by the hand, and they blew their noses; and then Father said, ‘Your Uncle has been most kind—most—’
But Uncle interrupted by saying, ‘Now, Dick, no nonsense!’ Then H. O. said, ‘Then you’re not poor at all?’ as if he were very disappointed. The Uncle replied, ‘I have enough for my simple wants, thank you, H. O.; and your Father’s business will provide him with enough for yours. Eh!—what?’
Then we all went down and looked at the fox thoroughly, and made the Uncle take the glass off so that we could see it all round and then the Uncle took us all over the house, which is the most comfortable one I have ever been in. There is a beautiful portrait of Mother in Father’s sitting-room. The Uncle must be very rich indeed. This ending is like what happens in Dickens’s books; but I think it was much jollier to happen like a book, and it shows what a nice man the Uncle is, the way he did it all.
Think how flat it would have been if the Uncle had said, when we first offered him the one and threepence farthing, ‘Oh, I don’t want your dirty one and three-pence! I’m very rich indeed.’ Instead of which he saved up the news of his wealth till Christmas, and then told us all in one glorious burst. Besides, I can’t help it if it is like Dickens, because it happens this way. Real life is often something like books.
Presently, when we had seen the house, we were taken into the drawing-room, and there was Mrs Leslie, who gave us the shillings and wished us good hunting, and Lord Tottenham, and Albert-next-door’s Uncle—and Albert-next-door, and his Mother (I’m not very fond of her), and best of all our own Robber and his two kids, and our Robber had a new suit on. The Uncle told us he had asked the people who had been kind to us, and Noel said, ‘Where is my noble editor that I wrote the poetry to?’
The Uncle said he had not had the courage to ask a strange editor to dinner; but Lord Tottenham was an old friend of Uncle’s, and he had introduced Uncle to Mrs Leslie, and that was how he had the pride and pleasure of welcoming her to our house-warming. And he made her a bow like you see on a Christmas card.