Page:The Wouldbegoods.djvu/283

 grown up even out of a playful brotherly act like ours had been, only Alice chucked the Halma and said:

"Let dogs delight. Come on—let's play something."

Then Dora said, "Yes, but look here. Now we're all together, I do want to say something. What about the Wouldbegoods Society?"

Many of us groaned, and one said, "Hear! hear!" I will not say which one, but it was not Oswald.

"No, but really," Dora said, "I don't want to be preachy—but you know we did say we'd try to be good. And it says in a book I was reading only yesterday that not being naughty is not enough. You must be good. And we've hardly done anything. The Golden Deed book's almost empty."

"Couldn't we have a book of leaden deeds," said Noël, coming out of his poetry, "then there'd be plenty for Alice to write about if she wants to, or brass or zinc or aluminium deeds? We sha'n't ever fill the book with golden ones."

H. O. had rolled himself in the red table-cloth, and said Noël was only advising us to be naughty, and again peace waved in the balance. But Alice said, "Oh, H. O., don't—he didn't mean that; but really and truly, I wish wrong things weren't so interesting. You begin to do a noble act, and then it gets so exciting, and before you know where you are you are doing something wrong as hard as you can lick."