Page:The Wouldbegoods.djvu/186

 We said we were sorry. There was nothing else to say, only Alice added, "We didn't mean to be naughty."

"Of course not," said Albert's uncle, "you never do. Oh, yes, I'll kiss you—but it's bed and it's two hundred lines to-morrow, and the line is—'Beware of Being Beavers and Burning Bridges. Dread Dams.' It will be a capital exercise in capital B's and D's."

We knew by that that, though annoyed, he was not furious; we went to bed.

I got jolly sick of capital B's and D's before sunset on the morrow. That night, just as the others were falling asleep, Oswald said:

"I say."

"Well," retorted his brother.

"There is one thing about it," Oswald went on, "it does show it was a rattling good dam anyhow."

And filled with this agreeable thought, the weary beavers (or explorers, polar or otherwise) fell asleep.