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42 thought myself at first that perhaps it would be better to retire for the present, and return later with a strongly armed force.

"It's not burglars;" Alice whispered, "the mysterious stranger was bringing things in, not taking them out. They must be coiners—and oh, Oswald!—don't let's! The things they coin with must hurt very much. Do let's go to bed!"

But Dicky said he was going to see; if there was a reward for finding out things like this he would like to have the reward.

"They locked the back door," he whispered, "I heard it go. And I could look in quite well through the holes in the shutters and be back over the wall long before they'd got the door open, even if they started to do it at once."

There were holes at the top of the shutters the shape of hearts, and the yellow light came out through them as well as through the chinks of the shutters.

Oswald said if Dicky went he should, because he was the eldest; and Alice said, "If any one goes it ought to be me, because I thought of it."

So Oswald said, "Well, go then"; and she said, "Not for anything!" And she begged