Page:The Story of the Treasure Seekers.djvu/344

294 because it happens this way. Real life is often something like books.

Presently, when we had seen the house, we were taken into the drawing-room, and there was Mrs Leslie, who gave us the shillings and wished us good hunting, and Lord Tottenham, and Albert-next-door's Uncle&mdash;and Albert-next-door, and his Mother (I'm not very fond of her), and best of all our own Robber and his two kids, and our Robber had a new suit on. The Uncle told us he had asked the people who had been kind to us, and Noël said, "Where is my noble editor that I wrote the poetry to?"

The Uncle said he had not had the courage to ask a strange editor to dinner; but Lord Tottenham was an old friend of Uncle's, and he had introduced Uncle to Mrs Leslie, and that was how he had the pride and pleasure of welcoming her to our house-warming. And he made her a bow like you see on a Christmas card.

Then Alice asked, "What about Mr Rosenbaum? He was kind; it would have been a pleasant surprise for him."

But everybody laughed, and Uncle said&mdash;

"Your father has paid him the sovereign he lent you. I don't think he could have borne another pleasant surprise."

And I said there was the butcher, and he