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 threepence! 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 Noël 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 housewarming. And he made her a bow like you see on a Christmas card.
Then Alice asked, “What about Mr. Rosenbaum? He was kind; it would have been a pleasant surprise for him.”
But everybody laughed, and Uncle said—
“Your father has paid him the sovereign he lent you. I don’t think he could have borne another pleasant surprise.”
And I said there was the butcher, and he was really kind; but they only laughed, and Father said you could not ask all your business friends to a private dinner.
Then it was dinnertime, and we thought of Uncle’s talk about cold mutton and rice. But it was a beautiful dinner, and I never saw such a dessert! We had ours on plates to take away into another sitting-room, which was much jollier than sitting round the table with the grownups. But the Robber’s kids stayed with their Father. They were very shy and frightened, and said hardly anything, but looked all about with very bright eyes. H. O. thought they were like white mice; but afterwards we got to know them very well, and in the end they were not so mousy. And there is a good deal of interesting stuff to tell about them; but I shall put all that in another book, for there is no room for it in this one. We played desert islands all the afternoon and drank Uncle’s health in ginger wine. It was H. O. that upset his over Alice’s green silk dress, and she never even rowed him. Brothers ought not to have favourites, and Oswald would never be so mean as to have a favourite sister, or, if he had, wild horses should not make him tell who it was.
And now we are to go on living in the big house on the Heath, and it is very jolly.
Mrs. Leslie often comes to see us, and our own Robber and Albert-next-door’s uncle. The Indian Uncle likes him because he has been in India too and is brown; but our Uncle does not like Albert-next-door. He says he is a muff. And I am to go to Rugby, and so are Noël and H. O., and perhaps to Balliol afterwards. Balliol is my Father’s college. It has two separate coats of arms, which many other colleges are not allowed. Noël is going to be a poet and Dicky wants to go into Father’s business.
The Uncle is a real good old sort; and just think, we should never have found him if we hadn’t made up our minds to be Treasure Seekers!
Noël made a poem about it—
Lo! the poor Indian from lands afar,
Comes where the treasure seekers are;
We looked for treasure, but we find
The best treasure of all is the Uncle good and kind.
I thought it was rather rot, but Alice would show it to the Uncle, and he liked it very much. He kissed Alice and he smacked Noël on the back, and he said, “I don’t think I’ve done so badly either, if you come to that, though I was never a regular professional treasure seeker. Eh!—what?”
Colophon
The Story of the Treasure Seekers
was published in 1899 by
E. Nesbit.
This ebook was produced for
Standard Ebooks
by
Claus Maack Andersen,
and is based on a transcription produced in 1997 by
Jo Churcher and David Widger
for
Project Gutenberg
and on digital scans from the
Internet Archive.
The cover page is adapted from
The Meeting,
a painting completed in 1884 by
Marie Bashkirtseff.
The cover and title pages feature the
League Spartan and Sorts Mill Goudy
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The League of Moveable Type.
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Uncopyright
May you do good and not evil.
May you find forgiveness for yourself and forgive others.
May you share freely, never taking more than you give.
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