THE WOULDBEGOODS
"They are beginning the preliminary excavation in readiness for to-morrow."
"What's up to-morrow?" H. O. asked.
"To-morrow we propose to open this barrow and examine it."
"Then you're the Antiquities," said H. O.
"I'm the secretary," said the gentleman, smiling, but narrowly.
"Oh, you're all coming to tea with us," Dora said, and added anxiously, "how many of you do you think there'll be?"
"Oh, not more than eighty or ninety, I should think," replied the gentleman.
This took our breath away and we went home. As we went, Oswald, who notices many things that would pass unobserved by the light and careless, saw Denny frowning hard.
So he said, "What's up?"
"I've got an idea," the Dentist said. "Let's call a council." The Dentist had grown quite used to our ways now. We had called him Dentist ever since the fox-hunt day. He called a council as if he had been used to calling such things all his life, and having them come, too; whereas we all know that his former existing was that of a white mouse in a trap, with that cat of a Murdstone aunt watching him through the bars.
(That is what is called a figure of speech. Albert's uncle told me.)
Councils are held in the straw-loft.
As soon as we were all there and the straw had stopped rustling after our sitting down, Dicky said:
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