'I wish we could secure that partnership,' said Oswald. He is twelve,
and a very thoughtful boy for his age.

Alice looked up from her painting. She was trying to paint a fairy
queen's frock with green bice, and it wouldn't rub. There is something
funny about green bice. It never will rub off; no matter how expensive
your paintbox is--and even boiling water is very little use.

She said, 'Bother the bice! And, Oswald, it's no use thinking about
that. Where are we to get a hundred pounds?'

'Ten pounds a week is five pounds to us,' Oswald went on--he had done
the sum in his head while Alice was talking--'because partnership means
halves. It would be A1.'

Noel sat sucking his pencil--he had been writing poetry as usual. I saw
the first two lines--

I wonder why Green Bice
Is never very nice.

Suddenly he said, 'I wish a fairy would come down the chimney and drop a
jewel on the table--a jewel worth just a hundred pounds.'

'She might as well give you the hundred pounds while she was about it,'
said Dora.

'Or while she was about it she might as well give us five pounds a
week,' said Alice.