'What about the beer-stands?' I said. And we got two out of the
cellar. With bolsters and string we fastened insides to the
tigers--and they were really fine. The legs of the beer-stands did
for tigers' legs. It was indeed the finishing touch.

Then we boys put on just our bathing drawers and vests--so as to be
able to play with the waterfall without hurting our clothes. I
think this was thoughtful. The girls only tucked up their frocks
and took their shoes and stockings off. H. O. painted his legs and
his hands with Condy's fluid--to make him brown, so that he might
be Mowgli, although Oswald was captain and had plainly said he was
going to be Mowgli himself. Of course the others weren't going to
stand that. So Oswald said--

'Very well. Nobody asked you to brown yourself like that. But now
you've done it, you've simply got to go and be a beaver, and live
in the dam under the waterfall till it washes off.'

He said he didn't want to be beavers. And Noel said--

'Don't make him. Let him be the bronze statue in the palace
gardens that the fountain plays out of.'

So we let him have the hose and hold it up over his head. It made
a lovely fountain, only he remained brown. So then Dicky and
Oswald and I did ourselves brown too, and dried H. O. as well as we
could with our handkerchiefs, because he was just beginning to
snivel. The brown did not come off any of us for days.

Oswald was to be Mowgli, and we were just beginning to arrange the