THE WOULDBEGOODS
sleep with him. I always thought it was only beer and things made people sleepy, but he was not so. When he was asleep he rolled into the ditch, but it did not wake him up.
The boys were getting very noisy, and they began to shout things, and to make silly noises with their mouths, and when Oswald and Dicky went over to them and told them to just chuck it, they were worse than ever. I think perhaps Oswald and Dicky might have fought and settled them—though there were eleven, yet back to back you can always do it against overwhelming numbers in a book—only Alice called out:
"Oswald, here's some more, come back!"
We went. Three big men were coming down the road, very red and hot, and not amiable-looking. They stopped in front of the Benevolent Bar and slowly read the wadding and red-stuff label.
Then one of them said he was blessed, or something like that, and another said he was too. The third one said, "Blessed or not, a drink's a drink. Blue ribbon though by" (a word you ought not to say, though it is in the Bible and the catechism as well). "Let's have a liquor, little missy."
The dogs were growling, but Oswald thought it best not to take any notice of what the dogs said, but to give these men each a drink. So he did. They drank, but not as if they cared about it very much, and then they set their glasses down on the table, a liberty no one else had entered into, and
238
