The Story of the Treasure Seekers<br />Being the Adventures of the Bastable Children in Search of a, E. Nesbit [top ten books to read txt] 📗

her a few mice—because she would be of age in a few days and then it wouldn’t matter. So the fairy godmother—- (I’m very sorry, but there’s no room to make the chapters any longer.-ED.) —————— CHAPTER III—by the Sub-Editor

(I can’t—I’d much rather not—I don’t know how.)

—————— CHAPTER IV—by Dicky

I must now retrace my steps and tell you something about our hero. You must know he had been to an awfully jolly school, where they had turkey and goose every day for dinner, and never any mutton, and as many helps of pudding as a fellow cared to send up his plate for—so of course they had all grown up very strong, and before he left school he challenged the Head to have it out man to man, and he gave it him, I tell you. That was the education that made him able to fight Red Indians, and to be the stranger who might have been observed in the first chapter.

—————— CHAPTER V—by Noel

I think it’s time something happened in this story. So then the dragon he came out, blowing fire out of his nose, and he said—

‘Come on, you valiant man and true, I’d like to have a set-to along of you!’

(That’s bad English.—ED. I don’t care; it’s what the dragon said. Who told you dragons didn’t talk bad English?—Noel.)

So the hero, whose name was Noeloninuris, replied— ‘My blade is sharp, my axe is keen, You’re not nearly as big As a good many dragons I’ve seen.’

(Don’t put in so much poetry, Noel. It’s not fair, because none of the others can do it.—ED.)

And then they went at it, and he beat the dragon, just as he did the Head in Dicky’s part of the Story, and so he married the Princess, and they lived—- (No they didn’t—not till the last chapter.—ED.)

—————— CHAPTER VI—by H. O.

I think it’s a very nice Story—but what about the mice? I don’t want to say any more. Dora can have what’s left of my chapter.

—————— CHAPTER VII—by the Editors

And so when the dragon was dead there were lots of mice, because he used to kill them for his tea but now they rapidly multiplied and ravaged the country, so the fair lady Alicia, sometimes called the Princess, had to say she would not marry any one unless they could rid the country of this plague of mice. Then the Prince, whose real name didn’t begin with N, but was Osrawalddo, waved his magic sword, and the dragon stood before them, bowing gracefully. They made him promise to be good, and then they forgave him; and when the wedding breakfast came, all the bones were saved for him. And so they were married and lived happy ever after.

(What became of the other stranger?—NOEL. The dragon ate him because he asked too many questions.—EDITORS.)

This is the end of the story.

INSTRUCTIVE

It only takes four hours and a quarter now to get from London to Manchester; but I should not think any one would if they could help it.

A DREADFUL WARNING. A wicked boy told me a very instructive thing about ginger. They had opened one of the large jars, and he happened to take out quite a lot, and he made it all right by dropping marbles in, till there was as much ginger as before. But he told me that on the Sunday, when it was coming near the part where there is only juice generally, I had no idea what his feelings were. I don’t see what he could have said when they asked him. I should be sorry to act like it.

—————— SCIENTIFIC

Experiments should always be made out of doors. And don’t use benzoline.—DICKY. (That was when he burnt his eyebrows off.—ED.)

The earth is 2,400 miles round, and 800 through—at least I think so, but perhaps it’s the other way.—DICKY. (You ought to have been sure before you began.—ED.)

—————— SCIENTIFIC COLUMN

In this so-called Nineteenth Century Science is but too little considered in the nurseries of the rich and proud. But we are not like that.

It is not generally known that if you put bits of camphor in luke-warm water it will move about. If you drop sweet oil in, the camphor will dart away and then stop moving. But don’t drop any till you are tired of it, because the camphor won’t any more afterwards. Much amusement and instruction is lost by not knowing things like this.

If you put a sixpence under a shilling in a wine-glass, and blow hard down the side of the glass, the sixpence will jump up and sit on the top of the shilling. At least I can’t do it myself, but my cousin can. He is in the Navy.

—————— ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS

Noel. You are very poetical, but I am sorry to say it will not do.

Alice. Nothing will ever make your hair curl, so it’s no use. Some people say it’s more important to tidy up as you go along. I don’t mean you in particular, but every one.

H. O. We never said you were tubby, but the Editor does not know any cure.

Noel. If there is any of the paper over when this newspaper is finished, I will exchange it for your shut-up inkstand, or the knife that has the useful thing in it for taking stones out of horses’ feet, but you can’t have it without.

H. O. There are many ways how your steam engine might stop working. You might ask Dicky. He knows one of them. I think it is the way yours stopped.

Noel. If you think that by filling the garden with sand you can make crabs build their nests there you are not at all sensible.

You have altered your poem about the battle of Waterloo so often, that we cannot read it except where the Duke waves his sword and says some thing we can’t read either. Why did you write it on blotting-paper with purple chalk?—ED. (Because YOU KNOW WHO sneaked my pencil.—NOEL.)

—————— POETRY The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold, And the way he came down was awful, I’m told; But it’s nothing to the way one of the Editors comes down on me, If I crumble my bread-and-butter or spill my tea. NOEL. —————— CURIOUS FACTS

If you hold a