New Treasure Seekers; Or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune
Edition opening
Contents and reading sections
NEW TREASURE SEEKERS
NEW TREASURE SEEKERS
Or The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune
by
E. NESBIT
Author of "The Treasure Seekers,"
"The Would-Be-Goods," Etc.
With Illustrations by Gordon Browne and Lewis Baumer [Illustration]
New York
Frederick A. Stokes Company
Publishers
TO
ARTHUR WATTS
(OSWALD IN PARIS)
FROM
E. NESBIT
_Montparnasse, 1904._
NEW TREASURE SEEKERS
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE ROAD TO ROME; OR, THE SILLY STOWAWAY 15
THE CONSCIENCE-PUDDING 37
ARCHIBALD THE UNPLEASANT 62
OVER THE WATER TO CHINA 88
THE YOUNG ANTIQUARIES 113
THE INTREPID EXPLORER AND HIS LIEUTENANT 136
THE TURK IN CHAINS; OR, RICHARD'S REVENGE 161
THE GOLDEN GONDOLA 185
THE FLYING LODGER 209
THE SMUGGLER'S REVENGE 236
ZAIDA, THE MYSTERIOUS PROPHETESS OF THE GOLDEN ORIENT 262
THE LADY AND THE LICENSE; OR, FRIENDSHIP'S GARLAND 287
THE POOR AND NEEDY 311
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE STAIR WAS OF STONE, ARCHED OVERHEAD LIKE CHURCHES _Frontispiece_
DORA DID SOME WHITE SEWING 19
THEY LAUGHED EVER SO 34
AND HE WAS AWFULLY RUDE TO THE SERVANTS 69
THE OTHERS CAME UP BY THE ROPE-LADDER 73
SO OSWALD OPENED THE TRAP-DOOR AND SQUINTED DOWN, AND
THERE WAS THAT ARCHIBALD 75
"WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG," JANE
ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY 83
WHEN FATHER CAME HOME THERE WAS AN AWFUL ROW 85
IT SEEMS THE SAILOR WAS ASLEEP, BUT OF COURSE WE DID NOT
KNOW, OR WE SHOULD NOT HAVE DISTURBED HIM 94
WE WENT ROUND A CORNER RATHER FAST, AND CAME SLAP INTO
THE LARGEST WOMAN I HAVE EVER SEEN 99
IT WAS INDEED A CELESTIAL CHINAMAN IN DEEP DIFFICULTIES 103
ON THE SIDEBOARD WAS A BLUEY-WHITE CROCKERY IMAGE 107
OSWALD LISTENED AS CAREFULLY AS HE COULD, BUT DENNY
ALWAYS BUZZES SO WHEN HE WHISPERS 117
IT WAS NOT TILL NEXT DAY THAT HE OWNED THAT THE TYPEWRITER
HAD BEEN A FIEND IN DISGUISE 123
THE STATIONMASTER AND PORTER LOOKED RESPECTFULLY AT US 127
HER VOICE WHEN SHE TOLD US WE WERE TRESPASSING WAS NOT SO
FURIOUS 131
THE LUNCH WAS A PERFECT DREAM OF A.1.-NESS 137
OSWALD DID NOT STRIKE THE NEXT MATCH CAREFULLY ENOUGH 145
WITH SCISSORS AND GAS PLIERS THEY CUT EVERY FUSE 157
"HI, BRIGANDS!" HE EXCLAIMED 167
IT WAS RATHER DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING THE SHAPE OF A
TURKEY 173
WHEN THE DOOR WAS SHUT HE SAID, "I AIN'T GOT MUCH TO SAY,
YOUNG GEMMEN" 179
THE FIVE OTHERS 191
OSWALD SAW THE DRIVER WINK AS HE PUT HIS BOOT ON THE STEP,
AND THE PORTER WHO WAS OPENING THE CAB DOOR WINKED BACK 201
HE LOOKED AT OSWALD'S BOOTS 203
HE FETCHED DOWN HALF A DOZEN PLANKS AND THE WORKMAN 218
"HOW MUCH?" SAID THE GENTLEMAN SHORTLY 222
"THEN I'LL MAKE YOU!" HE SAID, CATCHING HOLD OF OSWALD 232
A COASTGUARD ORDERED US QUITE HARSHLY 244
SURE ENOUGH IT WAS SEA-WATER, AS THE UNAMIABLE ONE SAID
WHEN HE HAD TASTED IT 259
"I SAY, BEALIE DEAR, YOU'VE GOT A BOOK UP AT YOUR PLACE" 265
ALICE BEAT THE DONKEY FROM THE CART, THE REST SHOUTED 272
"WE'VE GOT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS," SAID NOEL 280
_THE ROAD TO ROME; OR, THE SILLY STOWAWAY_
WE Bastables have only two uncles, and neither of them, are our
own natural-born relatives. One is a great-uncle, and the other is
the uncle from his birth of Albert, who used to live next door to
us in the Lewisham Road. When we first got to know him (it was over
some baked potatoes, and is quite another story) we called him
Albert-next-door's-Uncle, and then Albert's uncle for short. But
Albert's uncle and my father joined in taking a jolly house in the
country, called the Moat House, and we stayed there for our summer
holidays; and it was there, through an accident to a pilgrim with peas
in his shoes--that's another story too--that we found Albert's uncle's
long-lost love; and as she was very old indeed--twenty-six next
birthday--and he was ever so much older in the vale of years, he had to
get married almost directly, and it was fixed for about Christmas-time.
And when our holidays came the whole six of us went down to the Moat
House with Father and Albert's uncle. We never had a Christmas in the
country before. It was simply ripping. And the long-lost love--her name
was Miss Ashleigh, but we were allowed to call her Aunt Margaret even
before the wedding made it really legal for us to do so--she and her
jolly clergyman brother used to come over, and sometimes we went to the
Cedars, where they live, and we had games and charades, and
hide-and-seek, and Devil in the Dark, which is a game girls pretend to
like, and very few do really, and crackers and a Christmas-tree for the
village children, and everything you can jolly well think of.
And all the time, whenever we went to the Cedars, there was all sorts of
silly fuss going on about the beastly wedding; boxes coming from London
with hats and jackets in, and wedding presents--all glassy and silvery,
or else brooches and chains--and clothes sent down from London to choose
from. I can't think how a lady can want so many petticoats and boots and
things just because she's going to be married. No man would think of
getting twenty-four shirts and twenty-four waistcoats, and so on, just
to be married in.
"It's because they're going to Rome, I think," Alice said, when we
talked it over before the fire in the kitchen the day Mrs. Pettigrew
went to see her aunt, and we were allowed to make toffee. "You see, in
Rome you can only buy Roman clothes, and I think they're all stupid
bright colours--at least I know the sashes are. You stir now, Oswald.
My face is all burnt black."
Oswald took the spoon, though it was really not his turn by three; but
he is one whose nature is so that he cannot make a fuss about little
things--and he knows he can make toffee.
"Lucky hounds," H.O. said, "to be going to Rome. I wish I was."
"Hounds isn't polite, H.O., dear," Dora said; and H.O. said--
"Well, lucky bargees, then."
"It's the dream of my life to go to Rome," Noel said. Noel is our poet
brother. "Just think of what the man says in the 'Roman Road.' I wish
they'd take me."
"They won't," Dicky said. "It costs a most awful lot. I heard Father
saying so only yesterday."
"It would only be the fare," Noel answered; "and I'd go third, or even
in a cattle-truck, or a luggage van. And when I got there I could easily
earn my own living. I'd make ballads and sing them in the streets. The
Italians would give me lyres--that's the Italian kind of shilling, they
spell it with an _i_. It shows how poetical they are out there, their
calling it that."
"But you couldn't make Italian poetry," H.O. said, staring at Noel with
his mouth open.
"Oh, I don't know so much about that," Noel said. "I could jolly soon
learn anyway, and just to begin with I'd do it in English. There are
sure to be some people who would understand. And if they didn't, don't
you think their warm Southern hearts would be touched to see a pale,
slender, foreign figure singing plaintive ballads in an unknown tongue?
I do. Oh! they'd chuck along the lyres fast enough--they're not hard and
cold like North people. Why, every one here is a brewer, or a baker, or
a banker, or a butcher, or something dull. Over there they're all
bandits, or vineyardiners, or play the guitar, or something, and they
crush the red grapes and dance and laugh in the sun--you know jolly well
they do."
"This toffee's about done," said Oswald suddenly. "H.O., shut your silly
mouth and get a cupful of cold water." And then, what with dropping a
little of the toffee into the water to see if it was ready, and pouring
some on a plate that wasn't buttered and not being able to get it off
again when it was cold without breaking the plate, and the warm row
there was about its being one of the best dinner-service ones, the wild
romances of Noel's poetical intellect went out of our heads altogether;
and it was not till later, and when deep in the waters of affliction,
that they were brought back to us.
Next day H.O. said to Dora, "I want to speak to you all by yourself and
me." So they went into the secret staircase that creaks and hasn't been
secret now for countless years; and after that Dora did some white
sewing she wouldn't let us look at, and H.O. helped her.
"It's another wedding present, you may depend," Dicky said--"a beastly
surprise, I shouldn't wonder." And no more was said. The rest of us were
busy skating on the moat, for it was now freezing hard. Dora never did
care for skating; she says it hurts her feet.
And now Christmas and Boxing Day passed like a radiating dream, and it
was the wedding-day. We all had to go to the bride's mother's house
before the wedding, so as to go to church with the wedding party. The
girls had always wanted to be somebody's bridesmaids, and now they
were--in white cloth coats like coachmen, with lots of little capes, and
white beaver bonnets. They didn't look so bad, though rather as if they
were in a Christmas card; and their dresses were white silk like
pocket-handkerchiefs under the long coats. And their shoes had real
silver buckles our great Indian uncle gave them. H.O. went back just as
the waggonette was starting, and came out with a big brown-paper parcel.
We thought it was the secret surprise present Dora had been making, and,
indeed, when I asked her she nodded. We little recked what it really
was, or how our young brother was going to shove himself forward once
again. He _will_ do it. Nothing you say is of any lasting use.
There were a great many people at the wedding--quite crowds. There was
lots to eat and drink, and though it was all cold, it did not matter,
because there were blazing fires in every fireplace in the house, and
the place all decorated with holly and mistletoe and things. Every one
seemed to enjoy themselves very much, except Albert's uncle and his
blushing bride; and they looked desperate. Every one said how sweet she
looked, but Oswald thought she looked as if she didn't like being
married as much as she expected. She was not at all a blushing bride
really; only the tip of her nose got pink, because it was rather cold in
the church. But she is very jolly.
Her reverend but nice brother read the marriage service. He reads better