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Everything looked very nice, and we longed to see somebody really miserable come along so as to be able to allieve their distress.

A man and woman were the first; they stopped and stared, but when Alice said, “Free drinks! Free drinks! Aren’t you thirsty?” they said, “No, thank you,” and went on. Then came a person from the village; he didn’t even say “Thank you” when we asked him, and Oswald began to fear it might be like the awful time when we wandered about on Christmas Day trying to find poor persons and persuade them to eat our Conscience pudding.

But a man in a blue jersey and a red bundle eased Oswald’s fears by being willing to drink a glass of lemonade, and even to say, “Thank you, I’m sure,” quite nicely.

After that it was better. As we had foreseen, there were plenty of thirsty people walking along the Dover Road, and even some from the crossroad.

We had had the pleasure of seeing nineteen tumblers drained to the dregs ere we tasted any ourselves. Nobody asked for tea.

More people went by than we gave lemonade to. Some wouldn’t have it because they were too grand. One man told us he could pay for his own liquor when he was dry, which, praise be, he wasn’t over and above, at present; and others asked if we hadn’t any beer, and when we said “No,” they said it showed what sort we were–as if the sort was not a good one, which it is.

And another man said, “Slops again! You never get nothing for nothing, not this side heaven you don’t. Look at the bloomin’ blue ribbon on ’em! Oh, Lor’!” and went on quite sadly without having a drink.

Our Pig-man who helped us on the Tower of Mystery day went by and we hailed him, and explained it all to him and gave him a drink, and asked him to call as he came back. He liked it all, and said we were a real good sort. How different from the man who wanted the beer. Then he went on.

One thing I didn’t like, and that was the way boys began to gather. Of course we could not refuse to give drinks to any traveller who was old enough to ask for it, but when one boy had had three glasses of lemonade and asked for another, Oswald said:

“I think you’ve had jolly well enough. You can’t be really thirsty after all that lot.”

The boy said, “Oh, can’t I? You’ll just see if I can’t,” and went away. Presently he came back with four other boys, all bigger than Oswald; and they all asked for lemonade. Oswald gave it to the four new ones, but he was determined in his behavior to the other one, and wouldn’t give him a drop. Then the five of them went and sat on a gate a little way off and kept laughing in a nasty way, and whenever a boy went by they called out:

“I say, ‘ere’s a go,” and as often as not the new boy would hang about with them. It was disquieting, for though they had nearly all had lemonade, we could see it had not made them friendly.

A great glorious glow of goodness gladdened (those go all together and are called alliteration) our hearts when we saw our own tramp coming down the road. The dogs did not growl at him as they had at the boys or the beer-man. (I did not say before that we had the dogs with us, but of course we had, because we had promised never to go out without them.)

Oswald said, “Hullo,” and the tramp said, “Hullo.”

Then Alice said, “You see we’ve taken your advice; we’re giving free drinks. Doesn’t it all look nice?”

“It does that,” said the tramp. “I don’t mind if I do.”

So we gave him two glasses of lemonade succeedingly, and thanked him for giving us the idea. He said we were very welcome, and if we’d no objection he’d sit down a bit and put on a pipe. He did, and after talking a little more he fell asleep. Drinking anything seemed to end in 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.