Now Oswald, though stern, is always just, and besides we were all rather
hungry, and tea was ready. So we had it at once, Albert-next-door and
all--and we gave him what was left of the four-pound jar of apricot jam
we got with the money Noel got for his poetry. And we saved our crusts
for the prisoner.

Albert-next-door was very tiresome. Nobody could have had a nicer
prison than he had. We fenced him into a corner with the old wire
nursery fender and all the chairs, instead of putting him in the coal-
cellar as we had first intended. And when he said the dog-chains were
cold the girls were kind enough to warm his fetters thoroughly at the
fire before we put them on him.

We got the straw cases of some bottles of wine someone sent Father one
Christmas--it is some years ago, but the cases are quite good. We
unpacked them very carefully and pulled them to pieces and scattered the
straw about. It made a lovely straw pallet, and took ever so long to
make--but Albert-next-door has yet to learn what gratitude really is.
We got the bread trencher for the wooden platter where the prisoner's
crusts were put--they were not mouldy, but we could not wait till they
got so, and for the ewer we got the toilet jug out of the spare-room
where nobody ever sleeps. And even then Albert-next-door couldn't be
happy like the rest of us. He howled and cried and tried to get out,
and he knocked the ewer over and stamped on the mouldering crusts.
Luckily there was no water in the ewer because we had forgotten it, only
dust and spiders. So we tied him up with the clothes-line from the back
kitchen, and we had to hurry up, which was a pity for him. We might
have had him rescued by a devoted page if he hadn't been so tiresome.
In fact Noel was actually dressing up for the page when Albert-next-door