Page:Oswald Bastable and Others - Nesbit.djvu/115

Rh 'because it makes a book more valuable to have an author's writing in it. Albert's uncle told me so.'

'But it has to be the same author that wrote the book,' Alice explained, 'and it was Cæsar wrote that book. And you aren't Cæsar yet, you know.'

'Nor don't want to be,' said Noel.

Oswald now thought that politeness was satisfied on both sides, so he said:

'What price treasures?'

And then Alice told. But it had to be in whispers, because the next-door people, who always did things at times when not convenient to us, were now taking in their washing off the line. I heard them remark that it was a 'good drying day.'

'Well,' Alice mysteriously observed, 'it was like this. (Do you think the Saracens' watchtower is really safe for two? It seems to go down awfully much in the middle.)'

'Sit nearer the ends, then,' said Oswald. 'Well?'

'We thought we would go to the pinewoods because of reading in Bret Harte that the resinous balsam of the pine is healing to the wounded spirit.'