And all the time Oswald was looking Dicky was pulling at his jacket to make him get down and let Dicky have a squint. And just as she said 'I almost,' Dicky pulled too hard and Oswald felt himself toppling on the giddy verge of the big flower-pots. Putting forth all his strength our hero strove to recover his equi- what's-its-name, but it was now lost beyond recall.
'You've done it this time!' he said, then he fell heavily among the flower-pots piled below. He heard them crash and rattle and crack, and then his head struck against an iron pillar used for holding up the next-door veranda. His eyes closed and he knew no more.
Now you will perhaps expect that at this moment Alice would have cried 'Murder!' If you think so you little know what girls are.
Directly she was left alone in that tree she made a bolt to tell Albert's uncle all about it and bring him to our rescue in case the coiner's gang was a very desperate one. And just when I fell, Albert's uncle was getting over the wall. Alice never screamed at all when Oswald fell, but Dicky thinks he heard Albert's uncle say, 'Confound those kids!' which would not have been kind or polite, so I hope he did not say it.
The people next door did not come out to see what the row was.
Albert's uncle did not wait for them to come out. He picked up Oswald and carried the insensible body of the gallant young detective to the wall, laid it on the top, and then climbed over and bore his lifeless burden into our house and put it on the sofa in Father's study. Father was out, so we needn't have crept so when we were getting into the garden. Then Oswald was restored to consciousness, and his head tied up, and sent to bed, and next day there was a lump on his young brow as big as a turkey's egg, and very uncomfortable.
Albert's uncle came in next day and talked to each of us separately. To Oswald he said many unpleasant things about ungentlemanly to spy on ladies, and about minding your own business; and when I began to tell him what I had heard he told me to shut up, and altogether he made me more uncomfortable than the bump did.
Oswald did not say anything to any one, but next day, as the shadows of eve were falling, he crept away, and wrote on a piece of paper, 'I want to speak to you,' and shoved it through the hole like a heart in the top of the next-door shutters.
And the youngest young lady put an eye to the heart-shaped hole, and then opened the shutter and said 'Well?' very crossly. Then Oswald said -'I am very sorry, and I beg your pardon. We wanted to be detectives, and we thought a gang of coiners infested your house, so we looked through your window last night. I saw the lettuce, and I heard what you said about the salmon being three-halfpence cheaper, and I know it is very dishonourable to pry into other people's secrets, especially ladies', and I never will again if you will forgive me this once.'
Then the lady frowned and then she laughed, and then she said -'So it was you tumbling into the flower-pots last night? We thought it was burglars. It frightened us horribly. Why, what a bump on your poor head!'
And then she talked to me a bit, and presently she said she and her sister had not wished people to know they were at home, because -And then she stopped short and grew very red, and I said, 'I thought you were all at Scarborough; your servant told Eliza so.
Why didn't you want people to know you were at home?'
The lady got redder still, and then she laughed and said -'Never mind the reason why. I hope your head doesn't hurt much.
Thank you for your nice, manly little speech. You've nothing to be ashamed of, at any rate.' Then she kissed me, and I did not mind.
And then she said, 'Run away now, dear. I'm going to - I'm going to pull up the blinds and open the shutters, and I want to do it at once, before it gets dark, so that every one can see we're at home, and not at Scarborough.'
