cry, and my Father is the bravest man in the world.

So you see it was time we looked for treasure and Oswald said so, and
Dora said it was all very well. But the others agreed with Oswald. So
we held a council. Dora was in the chair--the big dining-room chair,
that we let the fireworks off from, the Fifth of November when we had
the measles and couldn't do it in the garden. The hole has never been
mended, so now we have that chair in the nursery, and I think it was
cheap at the blowing-up we boys got when the hole was burnt.

'We must do something,' said Alice, 'because the exchequer is empty.'
She rattled the money-box as she spoke, and it really did rattle because
we always keep the bad sixpence in it for luck.

'Yes--but what shall we do?' said Dicky. 'It's so jolly easy to say
let's do _somethinmg_.' Dicky always wants everything settled exactly.
Father calls him the Definite Article.

'Let's read all the books again. We shall get lots of ideas out of
them.' It was Noel who suggested this, but we made him shut up, because
we knew well enough he only wanted to get back to his old books. Noel
is a poet. He sold some of his poetry once--and it was printed, but
that does not come in this part of the story.

Then Dicky said, 'Look here. We'll be quite quiet for ten minutes by
the clock--and each think of some way to find treasure. And when we've
thought we'll try all the ways one after the other, beginning with the
eldest.'

'I shan't be able to think in ten minutes, make it half an hour,' said