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I should not have said anything about the picnic but for one thing. It was the thin edge of the wedge. It was the all-powerful lever that moved but too many events. You see, we were now no longer strangers to the river.

And we went there whenever we could. Only we had to take the dogs, and to promise no bathing without grown-ups. But paddling in back waters was allowed. I say no more.

I have not enumerated Noel’s birthday presents because I wish to leave something to the imagination of my young readers. (The best authors always do this.) If you will take the large, red catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores, and just make a list of about fifteen of the things you would like best–prices from 2 s. to 25 s. –you will get a very good idea of Noel’s presents, and it will help you to make up your mind in case you are asked just before your next birthday what you really need.

One of Noel’s birthday presents was a cricket-ball. He cannot bowl for nuts, and it was a first-rate ball. So some days after the birthday Oswald offered him to exchange it for a cocoanut he had won at the fair, and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book. Oswald thought, and he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange, and so did Noel at the time, and he agreed to it, and was quite pleased till the girls said it wasn’t fair, and Oswald had the best of it. And then that young beggar Noel wanted the ball back, but Oswald, though not angry, was firm.

“You said it was a bargain, and you shook hands on it,” he said, and he said it quite kindly and calmly.

Noel said he didn’t care. He wanted his cricket-ball back.

And the girls said it was a horrid shame.

If they had not said that, Oswald might yet have consented to let Noel have the beastly ball, but now, of course, he was not going to. He said:

“Oh yes, I dare say. And then you would be wanting the cocoanut and things again the next minute.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H. O. had eaten the cocoanut, which only made it worse. And it made them worse, too–which is what the book calls poetic justice.

Dora said, “I don’t think it was fair,” and even Alice said:

“Do let him have it back, Oswald.” I wish to be just to Alice. She did not know then about the cocoanut having been secretly wolfed up.

We were in the garden. Oswald felt all the feelings of the hero when the opposing forces gathered about him are opposing as hard as ever they can. He knew he was not unfair, and he did not like to be jawed at just because Noel had eaten the cocoanut and wanted the ball back. Though Oswald did not know then about the eating of the cocoanut, but he felt the injustice in his soul all the same.

Noel said afterwards he meant to offer Oswald something else to make up for the cocoanut, but he said nothing about this at the time.

“Give it me, I say,” Noel said.

And Oswald said, “Sha’n’t!”

Then Noel called Oswald names, and Oswald did not answer back but just kept smiling pleasantly, and carelessly throwing up the ball and catching it again with an air of studied indifference.

It was Martha’s fault that what happened happened. She is the bull-dog, and very stout and heavy. She had just been let loose and she came bounding along in her clumsy way, and jumped up on Oswald, who is beloved by all dumb animals. (You know how sagacious they are.) Well, Martha knocked the ball out of Oswald’s hands, and it fell on the grass, and Noel pounced on it like a hooded falcon on its prey. Oswald would scorn to deny that he was not going to stand this, and the next moment the two were rolling over on the grass, and very soon Noel was made to bite the dust. And serve him right. He is old enough to know his own mind.