Page:The Story of the Treasure Seekers.djvu/133

Rh manners, and I want to go in to my tea. Let go of me!"

But Alice told him, quite kindly, that he was not going in to his tea, but coming with us.

"I'm not," said Albert-next-door; "I'm going home. Leave go! I've got a bad cold. You're making it worse." Then he tried to cough, which was very silly, because we'd seen him in the morning, and he'd told us where the cold was that he wasn't to go out with. When he had tried to cough, he said, "Leave go of me! You see my cold's getting worse."

"You should have thought of that before," said Dicky; "you're coming in with us."

"Don't be a silly," said Noël; "you know we told you at the very beginning that resistance was useless. There is no disgrace in yielding. We are five to your one."

By this time Eliza had opened the door, and we thought it best to take him in without any more parleying. To parley with a prisoner is not done by bandits.

Directly we got him safe into the nursery, H. O. began to jump about and say, "Now you're a prisoner really and truly!"

And Albert-next-door began to cry. He