It was Jane who said, 'I don't see how we're to spend it all.
There must be thousands of pounds among the lot of us. I'm going
to leave some of mine behind this stump in the hedge. And directly
we get to the village we'll buy some biscuits; I know it's long
past dinner-time.' She took out a handful or two of gold and hid
it in the hollows of an old hornbeam. 'How round and yellow they
are,' she said. 'Don't you wish they were gingerbread nuts and we
were going to eat them?'

'Well, they're not, and we're not,' said Cyril. 'Come on!'

But they came on heavily and wearily. Before they reached the
village, more than one stump in the hedge concealed its little
hoard of hidden treasure. Yet they reached the village with about
twelve hundred guineas in their pockets. But in spite of this
inside wealth they looked quite ordinary outside, and no one would
have thought they could have more than a half-crown each at the
outside. The haze of heat, the blue of the wood smoke, made a sort
of dim misty cloud over the red roofs of the village. The four sat
down heavily on the first bench they came to- It happened to be
outside the Blue Boar Inn.

It was decided that Cyril should go into the Blue Boar and ask for
ginger-beer, because, as Anthea said, 'It is not wrong for men to
go into public houses, only for children. And Cyril is nearer to
being a man than us, because he is the eldest.' So he went. The
others sat in the sun and waited.

'Oh, hats, how hot it is!' said Robert. 'Dogs put their tongues
out when they're hot; I wonder if it would cool us at all to put