would have been very unpleasant for Oswald if he hadn't happened to be a
very brave boy, and knew the policeman on that beat very well indeed. So
the policeman backed him up, and the old gentleman said he was sorry,
and offered Oswald sixpence. Oswald refused it with polite disdain, and
nothing more happened at all.

When Oswald had tried by himself and it had not come off, he said to the
others, 'We're wasting our time, not trying to rescue the old gentleman
in deadly peril. Come--buck up! Do let's do something!'

It was dinner-time, and Pincher was going round getting the bits off the
plates. There were plenty because it was cold-mutton day. And Alice
said--

'It's only fair to try Oswald's way--he has tried all the things the
others thought of. Why couldn't we rescue Lord Tottenham?'

Lord Tottenham is the old gentleman who walks over the Heath every day
in a paper collar at three o'clock--and when he gets halfway, if there
is no one about, he changes his collar and throws the dirty one into the
furze-bushes.

Dicky said, 'Lord Tottenham's all right--but where's the deadly peril?'

And we couldn't think of any. There are no highwaymen on Blackheath
now, I am sorry to say. And though Oswald said half of us could be
highwaymen and the other half rescue party, Dora kept on saying it would
be wrong to be a highwayman--and so we had to give that up.

Then Alice said, 'What about Pincher?'