THE WATER-WORKS
be, and if not, for the price of the coals. And we saw it all.
And when he had done Alice burst out crying over her plate and said:
"It's no use! We have tried to be good since we've been down here. You don't know how we've tried! And it's all no use. I believe we are the wickedest children in the whole world, and I wish we were all dead!"
This was a dreadful thing to say, and of course the rest of us were all very shocked. But Oswald could not help looking at Albert's uncle to see how he would take it.
He said, very gravely, "My dear kiddie, you ought to be sorry, and I wish you to be sorry for what you've done. And you will be punished for it." (We were; our pocket-money was stopped and we were forbidden to go near the river, besides impositions miles long.) "But," he went on, "you mustn't give up trying to be good. You are extremely naughty and tiresome, as you know very well."
Alice, Dicky, and Noël began to cry at about this time.
"But you are not the wickedest children in the world by any means."
Then he stood up and straightened his collar, and put his hands in his pockets.
"You're very unhappy now," he said, "and you deserve to be. But I will say one thing to you."
Then he said a thing which Oswald at least will never forget (though but little he deserved it,
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