12. The Nobleness of Oswald
13. The Robber and the Burglar
14. The Divining-rod
15. 'Lo, the Poor Indian!'
16. The End of the Treasure-seeking




CHAPTER 1
THE COUNCIL OF WAYS AND MEANS

This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I
think when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about the
looking.

There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the
treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how
beastly it is when a story begins, "'Alas!" said Hildegarde with a deep
sigh, "we must look our last on this ancestral home"'--and then some one
else says something--and you don't know for pages and pages where the
home is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it. Our ancestral home
is in the Lewisham Road. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not a
large one. We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father.
Our Mother is dead, and if you think we don't care because I don't tell
you much about her you only show that you do not understand people at
all. Dora is the eldest. Then Oswald--and then Dicky. Oswald won the
Latin prize at his preparatory school--and Dicky is good at sums. Alice
and Noel are twins: they are ten, and Horace Octavius is my youngest
brother. It is one of us that tells this story--but I shall not tell