THE WOULDBEGOODS
yet if there's going to be a prize there must be a prize and there's an end of it.
Thus the idea was not followed up. Dicky yawned and said, "Let's go into the barn and make a fort."
So we did, with straw. It does not hurt straw to be messed about with like it does hay.
The down-stairs—I mean down-ladder—part of the barn was fun too, especially for Pincher. There was as good ratting there as you could wish to see. Martha tried it, but she could not help running kindly beside the rat, as if she was in double harness with it. This is the noble bull-dog's gentle and affectionate nature coming out. We all enjoyed the ratting that day, but it ended, as usual, in the girls crying because of the poor rats. Girls cannot help this; we must not be waxy with them on account of it, they have their nature, same as bull-dogs have, and it is this that makes them so useful in smoothing the pillows of the sick-bed and tending wounded heroes.
However, the forts, and Pincher, and the girls crying, and having to be thumped on the back, passed the time very agreeably till dinner. There was roast mutton with onion sauce, and a roly-poly pudding.
Albert's uncle said we had certainly effaced ourselves effectually, which means we hadn't bothered.
So we determined to do the same during the afternoon, for he told us his heroine was by no means out of the wood yet.
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