New Treasure Seekers

Part 1

NEW TREASURE SEEKERS

NEW TREASURE SEEKERS

Or The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune

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

ZAÏDA, 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

Part 2

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

Part 3

ALICE BEAT THE DONKEY FROM THE CART, THE REST SHOUTED 272

"WE'VE GOT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS," SAID NOËL 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," Noël said. Noël 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," Noël 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 Noël with his mouth open.

"Oh, I don't know so much about that," Noël 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 Noël'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.

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