girl I do not blame her. Indeed, I thought myself at first that perhaps
it would be better to retire for the present, and return later with a
strongly armed force.

'It's not burglars,' Alice whispered; 'the mysterious stranger was
bringing things in, not taking them out. They must be coiners--and oh,
Oswald!--don't let's! The things they coin with must hurt very much.
Do let's go to bed!'

But Dicky said he was going to see; if there was a reward for finding
out things like this he would like to have the reward.

'They locked the back door,' he whispered, 'I heard it go. And I could
look in quite well through the holes in the shutters and be back over
the wall long before they'd got the door open, even if they started to
do it at once.'

There were holes at the top of the shutters the shape of hearts, and the
yellow light came out through them as well as through the chinks of the
shutters.

Oswald said if Dicky went he should, because he was the eldest; and
Alice said, 'If any one goes it ought to be me, because I thought of
it.'

So Oswald said, 'Well, go then'; and she said, 'Not for anything!' And
she begged us not to, and we talked about it in the tree till we were
all quite hoarse with whispering.

At last we decided on a plan of action.