'You see,' Alice explained, 'we only said if we COULD we would be
good.'

'Well, then,' Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the
chopped hay off himself, 'call it the Society of the Wouldbegoods
and have done with it.'

Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick of it and wanted to make
himself a little disagreeable. If so, he was doomed to
disappointment. For everyone else clapped hands and called out,
'That's the very thing!' Then the girls went off to write out the
rules, and took H. O. with them, and Noel went to write some poetry
to put in the minute book. That's what you call the book that a
society's secretary writes what it does in. Denny went with him to
help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady's
school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy of
us, but he took to Noel. I can't think why. Dicky and Oswald
walked round the garden and told each other what they thought of
the new society.

'I'm not sure we oughtn't to have put our foot down at the
beginning,' Dicky said. 'I don't see much in it, anyhow.'

'It pleases the girls,' Oswald said, for he is a kind brother.

'But we're not going to stand jaw, and "words in season", and
"loving sisterly warnings". I tell you what it is, Oswald, we'll
have to run this thing our way, or it'll be jolly beastly for
everybody.'