Page:Oswald Bastable and Others - Nesbit.djvu/44

28 place, and how long they would keep you there for that crime.

Then my father held out one of the fatal circulars, and said:

'I suppose this is some of your work? Mr. Biggs here is bound in honour to do his best to find out when people break the laws of the land. Now, lotteries are illegal, and can be punished by law.'

Oswald gloomily wondered how much the law could do to you. He said:

'We didn't know, father.'

Then his father said:

'The best thing you can do is to tell this gentleman all about it.'

So Oswald said:

'Augustus Victor Plunkett fell off a ladder and broke his arm, and perhaps it was our fault for meddling with the ladder at all. So we wanted to do something to help him, and father said we might have a bazaar. It is happening now, and we had three pounds two and sevenpence last time I counted the bazaar.'

'But what about the lottery?' said Mr. Biggs, who did not look as if he would take Oswald to prison just then, as our young hero had feared.