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 do? We can't have our holidays spoiled by these snivelling kids."

"No," Alice said, "but they can't possibly go on snivelling forever. Perhaps they've got into the habit of it with that Murdstone aunt. She's enough to make anyone snivel."

"All the same," said Oswald, "we jolly well aren't going to have another day like to-day. We must do something to rouse them from their snivelling leth—what's its name?—something sudden and—what is it?—decisive."

"A booby trap," said H. O., "the first thing when they get up, and an apple-pie bed at night."

But Dora would not hear of it, and I own she was right.

"Suppose," she said, "we could get up a good play—like we did when we were Treasure Seekers."

We said, "Well, what?" But she did not say.

"It ought to be a good long thing—to last all day," Dicky said; "and if they like they can play, and if they don't—"

"If they don't, I'll read to them," Alice said.

But we all said: "No, you don't; if you begin that way you'll have to go on."

And Dicky added: "I wasn't going to say that at all. I was going to say if they didn't like it they could jolly well do the other thing."

We all agreed that we must think of something, but we none of us could, and at last the council broke up in confusion because Mrs. Blake—she is the housekeeper—came up and turned off the gas.