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 But next morning when we were having breakfast, and the two strangers were sitting there so pink and clean, Oswald suddenly said:

"I know; we'll have a jungle in the garden,"

And the others agreed, and we talked about it till brek was over. The little strangers only said "I don't know" whenever we said anything to them.

After brekker Oswald beckoned his brothers and sisters mysteriously apart and said:

"Do you agree to let me be captain to-day, because I thought of it?"

And they said they would.

Then he said: "We'll play jungle-book, and I shall be Mowgli. The rest of you can be what you like—Mowgli's father and mother, or any of the beasts."

"I don't suppose they know the book," said Noel. "They don't look as if they read anything, except at lesson times."

"Then they can go on being beasts all the time," Oswald said. "Any one can be a beast."

So it was settled.

And now Oswald—Albert's uncle has sometimes said he is clever at arranging things—began to lay his plans for the jungle. The day was indeed well chosen. Our Indian uncle was away; father was away; Mrs. Blake was going away, and the housemaid had an afternoon off. Oswald's first conscious act was to get rid of the white mice—I mean the little good visitors. He explained to them that there would be a play in