Part 42

"Just so," said the gentleman briskly as Oswald stepped modestly forward and said--

"Won't you come inside?"

"The very thing," said he, and came in.

We showed him into the dining-room and asked him to excuse us a minute, and then held a breathless council outside the door.

"It depends how many rooms he wants," said Dora.

"Let's say so much a room," said Dicky, "and extra if he wants Mrs. Beale to wait on him."

So we decided to do this. We thought a pound a room seemed fair.

And we went back.

"How many rooms do you want?" Oswald asked.

"All the room there is," said the gentleman.

"They are a pound each," said Oswald, "and extra for Mrs. Beale."

"How much altogether?"

Oswald thought a minute and then said "Nine rooms is nine pounds, and two pounds a week for Mrs. Beale, because she is a widow."

"Done!" said the gentleman. "I'll go and fetch my portmanteaus."

He bounced up and out and got into his carriage and drove away. It was not till he was finally gone quite beyond recall that Alice suddenly said--

"But if he has all the rooms where are we to sleep?"

"He must be awfully rich," said H.O., "wanting all those rooms."

"Well, he can't sleep in more than one at once," said Dicky, "however rich he is. We might wait till he was bedded down and then sleep in the rooms he didn't want."

But Oswald was firm. He knew that if the man paid for the rooms he must have them to himself.

"He won't sleep in the kitchen," said Dora; "couldn't we sleep there?"

But we all said we couldn't and wouldn't.

Then Alice suddenly said--

"I know! The Mill. There are heaps and heaps of fishing-nets there, and we could each take a blanket like Indians and creep over under cover of the night after the Beale has gone, and get back before she comes in the morning."

It seemed a sporting thing to do, and we agreed. Only Dora said she thought it would be draughty.

Of course we went over to the Mill at once to lay our plans and prepare for the silent watches of the night.

There are three stories to a windmill, besides the ground-floor. The first floor is pretty empty; the next is nearly full of millstones and machinery, and the one above is where the corn runs down from on to the millstones.

We settled to let the girls have the first floor, which was covered with heaps of nets, and we would pig in with the millstones on the floor above.

We had just secretly got out the last of the six blankets from the house and got it into the Mill disguised in a clothes-basket, when we heard wheels, and there was the gentleman back again. He had only got one portmanteau after all, and that was a very little one.