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The wounded explorer was lying with his wounds and bandages on the sofa, and we were all having our tea, with raspberries and white currants, which we richly needed after our torrid adventures, when Mrs. Pettigrew, the housekeeper, put her head in at the door and said:

“Please could I speak to you half a moment, sir,” to Albert’s uncle. And her voice was the kind that makes you look at each other when the grown-up has gone out, and you are silent, with your bread-and-butter half way to the next bite, or your teacup in mid flight to your lips.

It was as we supposed. Albert’s uncle did not come back for a long while. We did not keep the bread-and-butter on the wing all that time, of course, and we thought we might as well finish the raspberries and white currants. We kept some for Albert’s uncle, of course, and they were the best ones too; but when he came back he did not notice our thoughtful unselfishness.

He came in, and his face wore the look that means bed, and very likely no supper.

He spoke, and it was the calmness of white-hot iron, which is something like the calmness of despair. He said:

“You have done it again. What on earth possessed you to make a dam?”

“We were being beavers,” said H. O., in proud tones. He did not see as we did where Albert’s uncle’s tone pointed to.

“No doubt,” said Albert’s uncle, rubbing his hands through his hair. “No doubt! no doubt! Well, my beavers, you may go and build dams with your bolsters. Your dam stopped the stream; the clay you took for it left a channel through which it has run down and ruined about seven pounds’ worth of freshly reaped barley. Luckily the farmer found it out in time or you might have spoiled seventy pounds’ worth. And you burned a bridge yesterday.”

We said we were sorry. There was nothing else to say, only Alice added, “We didn’t mean to be naughty.”

“Of course not,” said Albert’s uncle, “you never do. Oh, yes, I’ll kiss you–but it’s bed and it’s two hundred lines to-morrow, and the line is–‘Beware of Being Beavers and Burning Bridges. Dread Dams.’ It will be a capital exercise in capital B’s and D’s.”

We knew by that that, though annoyed, he was not furious; we went to bed.

I got jolly sick of capital B’s and D’s before sunset on the morrow. That night, just as the others were falling asleep, Oswald said:

“I say.”

“Well,” retorted his brother.

“There is one thing about it,” Oswald went on, “it does show it was a rattling good dam anyhow.”

And filled with this agreeable thought, the weary beavers (or explorers, polar or otherwise) fell asleep.