A Conscience Pudding - E Nesbit

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Conscience Pudding by e Ne's Bitt. It was Christmas,
nearly a year after mother died. I cannot write about mother,
but I will just say one thing. If she had
only been away for a little while and not for always,
we shouldn't have been so keen on having a Christmas.
I didn't understand this then, but I am much older now,

(00:23):
and I think it was just because everything was so
different and horrid, we felt we must do something, and
perhaps we were not particular enough. What things make you
much more unhappy when you loaf about than when you
were doing events. Father had to go away just about Christmas.
He had heard that his wicked partner who ran away

(00:44):
with his money, was in France, and he thought he
could catch him. But really he was in Spain, where
catching criminals is never practiced. We did not know this
till afterwards. Before Father went away, he took Dora and
Oswald into his study and said, I'm awfully sorry I've
got to go away, but it is very serious business
and I must go. You'll be good while I'm away, kiddies,

(01:07):
won't you? We promised faithfully. Then he said, there are
reasons you wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you,
but you can't have much for Christmas this year, But
I've told Matilda to make you a good plane pudding.
Perhaps next Christmas will be brighter. It was for the
next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews and nieces of

(01:28):
an Indian uncle. But that is quite another story, As
good Old Kipling says, when father had been seen off
at Lewisham Station with his bags and a plaid rug
in a strap, we came home again and it was horrid.
There were papers and things littered all over his room
where he had packed. We tidy the room up. It
was the only thing we could do for him. It

(01:51):
was Dickie who accidentally broke his shaving glass, and h
O made a paper boat out of a letter. We
found out afterwards. Father particularly wanted to keep. This took
us some time, and when we went into the nursery
the fire was black out and we could not get
it alight again, even with the whole daily chronicle. Matilda,
who was our general then, was out as well as

(02:13):
the fire, so we went and sat in a kitchen.
There is always a good fire in kitchens. The kitchen
hearth rug was not nice to sit on, so we
spread newspapers on it. It was sitting in the kitchen.
I think that brought to our minds my father's parting
words about the pudding. I mean, Oswald said. Father said

(02:34):
we couldn't have much of a Christmas for secret reasons,
and he said he had told Matilda to make us
a plain pudding. The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow
over the deepening gloom of our young minds. I wonder
how plain she'll make it, Dickie said, as plain as
plain you may depend, said Oswald. Ah, here am I,

(02:57):
where are you pudding? That's her sort. The others groaned,
and we gathered closer round the fire till the newspapers
rustled madly. I believe I could make a pudding that
wasn't plain if I tried. Alice said, why shouldn't we?
No chink, said Oswald, with brief sadness. How much would

(03:20):
it cost? Noel asked, and added that Dora had twopence
and h O had a French halfpenny. Dora got the
cookery book out of the dresser drawer, where it lay
doubled up among clothes, pegs, dirty dusters, scallop shells, string
penny novelettes, and the dining room corkscrew the general we had.
Then it seemed as if she did all the cooking

(03:41):
on the cookery book instead of on the baking board.
There were traces of so many bygone meals upon its pages.
It doesn't say Christmas pudding at all, said Dora. Try plumb.
The resourceful Oswald instantly counseled. Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously.
Plum pudding five one eight, are rich with flour five

(04:04):
one seven, Christmas five one seven, cold brandy sauce for
two four one. We shouldn't care about that, so it's
no use looking good without eggs five one eight plain
five one eight. We don't want that anyhow. Christmas five
one seven, that's the one. It took her a long

(04:26):
time to find the page. Oswald got a shovel of
coals and made up the fire. It blazed up like
the devouring elephant the Daily Telegraph always calls it. Then
Dora read Christmas plum pudding. Time six hours to eat
it in, said h O. No silly to make it

(04:48):
forge a head, Dora. Dickie replied. Dora went on twenty
seventy two one pound and half of raisins, half a
pound of currants, three quarters of a pound of breadread crumbs,
half a pound of flour, three quarters of a pound
of beef suet, nine eggs, one wine glassful of brandy,
half a pound of citron and orange peel, half a nutmeg,

(05:11):
and a little ground ginger. I wonder how little ground
ginger a tea cupful would be enough, I think, Alice said,
we must not be extravagant. We haven't got anything yet
to be extravagant with, said Oswald, who had toothache that day.
What would you do with the things? If you've got them?
You'd chop the suet as fine as possible. I wonder

(05:33):
how fine that is, replied Dora. And the book together,
and mix it with the bread, crumbs and flour. Add
the currants, washed and dried, not starched, then, said Alice.
The citron and orange peel cut into thin slices. I
wonder what they call thin. Matilda's thin bread and butter
is quite different from what I mean by it. And

(05:55):
the raisins stoned and divided. How many heaps would you
divide them into? Seven? I suppose, said Alice, one for
each person and one for the pot I mean pudding.
Mix it all well together with the grated nutmeg and ginger,
then stir in nine eggs well beaten, and the brandy.
We'll leave that out, I think, And again, mix it

(06:16):
thoroughly together that every ingredient may be moistened. Put it
into a buttered mold, tie over tightly and boil for
six hours. Serve it ornamented with holly and brandy poured
over it. I should think holly and brandy poured over
it would be simply beastly, said Dickie. I expect the
book knows. I dare say holly and water would do

(06:38):
as well. Though this pudding may be made a month before,
it's no use reading about that. Though, Because we've only
got four days to Christmas, it's no use reading about
any of it, said Oswald, with thoughtful repeatedness. Because we
haven't got the things, and we haven't got the coin
to get them. We might get the tins somehow, said Dickie.

(07:01):
There must be lots of kind people who would subscribe
to a Christmas pudding for poor children who hadn't any
Noel said, well, I'm going skating at Pen's, said Oswald,
it's no use thinking about puddings. We must put up
with it plain. So he went and Dickie went with him.
When they returned to their home in the evening, the

(07:23):
fire had been lighted again in the nursery and the
others were just having tea. We toasted our bread and
butter on the bare side, and it gets a little
warm among the butter. This is called a French toast.
I like English better, but it is more expensive, Alice said,
Matilda is in a frightful rage about your putting those
coals on a kitchen fire, Oswald. She says, we sha'n't

(07:44):
have enough to last day a Christmas as it is.
And Father gave her a talking to before he went
about them. Asked her if she ate them, she says,
but I don't believe he did. Anyway, she's locked the
coal cellar door, and she's got the key in her pocket.
I don't see how we can boil the pudding. What pudding?
Said Oswald dreamily. He was thinking of a chap he

(08:05):
had seen at Penn's who had cut the date eighteen
ninety nine on the ice with four strokes the pudding.
Alice said, Oh, we've had such a time, Oswald. First,
Dora and I went to the shops to find out
exactly what the pudding were cost. It's only two and elevenpence,
Hatney counting in the holly. It's no good, Oswald repeated.

(08:28):
He is very patient and will say the same thing
any number of times. It's no good. You know, we've
got no tin, ah said Alice. But Tatcho and I
went out and we called at some of the houses
in Granville Park and Dartmouth Hill, and we got a
lot of sixpences and shillings besides pennies, and one old
gentleman gave us half a crown. He was so nice,

(08:52):
quite bald, with a knitted red and blue waistcoat. We've
got eight and sevenpence. Oswald did not feel quite sure
Father would like us to go asking for shillings and
sixpences or even half crowns from strangers, But he did
not say so. The money had been asked for and
got and it couldn't be helped, and perhaps he wanted

(09:12):
the pudding. I am not able to remember exactly why
he did not speak up and say this is wrong,
but anyway he didn't. Alice and Dora went out and
bought the things. Next morning they bought double quantities, so
that it came to five shillings and elevenpence and was
enough to make a noble pudding. There was a lot
of holly left over for decorations. We used very little

(09:34):
for the sauce. The money that was left we spent
very anxiously in other things to eat, such as dates
and figs and toffee. We did not tell Matilda about it.
She was a red haired girl and apt to turn
shirty at the least thing concealed under our jackets and overcoats.
We carried the parcels up to the nursery and hid

(09:56):
them in the treasure chest we had there. It was
the bureau drawer. It was locked up afterwards because the
treacle got all over the green bays and the little
drawers inside it. While we were waiting to begin to
make the pudding, it was the grocer told us we
ought to put treacle in the pudding, and also about
not so much ginger as a tea cupful. When Matilda

(10:16):
had begun to pretend to scrub the floor, she pretended
this three times a week, so as to have an
excuse not to let us in the kitchen, but I
know she used to read novelettes most of the time,
because Alice and I had a squint through the window
more than once. We barricaded the nursery door and set
to work. We were very careful to be quite clean.
We washed our hands as well as the currants. I

(10:39):
have sometimes thought we did not get all the soap
off the currants. The pudding smelt like a washing day
when the time came to cut it open, and we
washed a corner of the table to chop the suet on.
Chopping seuet looks easy to do. Try father's machine he
weighs letters with did to weigh out the things. We
did this very carefully in case the grocer had not

(10:59):
done so. Everything was white except the raisins. Ho had
carried them home. He was very young then, and there
was a hole in the corner of the paper bag,
and his mouth was sticky. Lots of people have been
hanged to a gibbet in chains on evidence no worse
than that, and we told Ho so till he cried.
This was good for him. It was not unkindness to hoe,

(11:22):
but part of our duty. Chopping suet as fine as
possible is much harder than any one would think. As
I said before, so is crumbling bread, especially if your
loaf is new like ours was. When we had done them,
the bread crumbs and suet were both very large and lumpy,
and of a dingy gray color, something like pale slate pencil.

(11:43):
They looked a better color when we had mixed them
with a flour. The girls had washed the currants with
brown windsor soap and the sponge. Some of the currants
got inside the sponge and kept coming out in a
bath for days afterwards. I see now that this was
not quite nice. We cut the candied peel as thin
as we wish people would cut our bread and butter.
We tried to take the stones out of the raisins,

(12:06):
but they were too sticky, so we just divided them
up in seven lots. Then we mixed the other things
in the wash hand basin from the spare bedroom that
was always spare. We each put in our own lot
of raisins and turned it all into a pudding basin
and tied it up in one of Alice's pinafores, which
was the nearest thing to a proper pudding cloth we
could find at any rate clean. What was left sticking

(12:29):
to the wash hand basin did not taste so bad.
It's a little bit soapy, Alice said, But perhaps that
will boil out like stains in tablecloths. It was a
difficult question how to boil the pudding. Matilda proved furious
when asked to let us just because someone had happened

(12:49):
to knock her hat off the scullery door, and Pincher
had got it and done for it. However, part of
the embassy nick to saucepan while the others were being
told what Matilda thought about the hat, And we got
hot water out of the bathroom and made it boil
over our nursery fire. We put the pudding in it.
It was now getting on towards the hour of tea,
and let it boil, with some exceptions owing to the

(13:12):
fire going down and Matilda not hurrying up with coals.
It boiled for an hour and a quarter. Then Matilda
came suddenly in and said, I'm not going to have
you messing about in here with my saucepans, and she
tried to take it off the fire. You will see
that we couldn't stand this. It was not likely I
do not remember who it was that told her to

(13:34):
mind her own business, And I think I have forgotten
who caught hold of her first to make her chuck it.
I'm sure no needless violence was used. Anyway, While the
struggle progressed, Alice and Dora took the saucepan away and
put it in the boot cupboard under the stairs, and
put the key in their pocket. This sharp encounter made
every one very hot and cross. We got over it

(13:56):
before Matilda did, but we brought her round before bedtime.
Should always be made up before bedtime, it says so
in the Bible. If this simple rule was followed, there
would not be so many wars and martyrs, and lawsuits
and inquisitions and bloody deaths. At the stake. All the
house was still. The gas was out all over the house,

(14:17):
except on the first landing, when several darkly shrouded figures
might have been observed creeping downstairs to the kitchen. On
the way with superior precaution, we got out our saucepan.
The kitchen fire was red but low. The coal cellar
was locked, and there was nothing in the scuttle but
a little coal dust and the piece of brown paper

(14:38):
that had put in to keep the coals from tumbling
out through the bottom where the hole is. We put
the saucepan on the fire and plied it with fuel.
Two chronicles, a telegraph, and two family herald novelettes were
burned in vain. I am almost sure the pudding did
not boil at all that night. Never mind, Alice said,
we can each nick a piece of coal every time

(14:59):
we go into the kitchen tomorrow. This daring scheme was
faithfully performed, and by night we had nearly half a
waste paper basket of coal, coke and cinders. And in
the depth of night once more we might have been observed,
this time with our collier like waste paper basket in
our guarded hands. There was more fire left in the

(15:20):
grate that night, and we fed it with a fuel
we had collected. This time, the fire blazed up and
the pudding boiled like mad. This was the time it
boiled two hours at least, I think it was about that.
But we dropped asleep on the kitchen tables and dresser.
You dare not be lowly in the night in a
kitchen because of the beetles. We were aroused by horrible

(15:43):
smell it was the pudding cloth burning all the water
had secretly boiled itself away. We filled it up at
once with cold and the saucepan cracked, So we cleaned
it and put it back on the shelf, and took
another and went to bed. You see what a lot
of trouble we had over the push every evening till Christmas,

(16:03):
which had now become only the day after tomorrow. We
sneaked down in the inky midnight and boiled that pudding
for as long as it would. On Christmas morning, we
chopped the holly for the sauce, but we put hot
water instead of brandy and moist sugar. Some of them
said it was not so bad. Oswald was not one
of these. Then came the moment, when the plain pudding

(16:27):
father had ordered smoked upon the board. Matilda brought it
in and went away at once. She had a cousin
out of Woolwich Arsenal to see her that day. I
remember those far off days are quite distinctive memory's recollection. Still,
then we got out our own pudding from its hiding
place and gave it one last hurried boil, only seven

(16:48):
minutes because of the general impatience which Oswald and Dora
could not cope with. We had found means to secrete
a dish, and we now tried to dish the pudding up,
but it stuck to the basin and had to be
dis lodged with a chisel. The pudding was horribly pale.
We poured the holly sauce over it, and Dora took
up the knife and was just cutting it when a

(17:09):
few simple words from Aho turned us from happy and
triumphing cookery artists the persons in despair. He said, how
pleased all those kind ladies and gentlemen would be if
they knew we were the poor children they gave the
shillings and sixpences and things for. We all said what

(17:29):
it was no moment for politeness, I say, Aho said,
they'd be glad if they knew it was us was
enjoying the pudding and not dirty little, really poor children.
You should say you were not you, was said Dora.
But it was as in a dream, and only from
habit do you mean to say? Oswald spoke firmly, yet

(17:52):
not angrily, that you and Alice went and begged for
money for poor children and then kept it. We didn't
keep it, said Acho, we spent it. We've kept the things,
you little duffer, said Dickie, looking at the pudding sitting
alone and uncared for on its dish. You begged for

(18:12):
money for poor children and then kept it. It's stealing,
that's what it is. I don't say so much about you.
You're only a silly kid. But Alice knew better. Why
did you do it? He turned to Alice, but she
was now too deep in tears to get a word out.
Aho looked a bit frightened, but he answered the question.

(18:33):
We have taught him this, he said. I thought they'd
give us more if I said poor children than if
I said just us. That's cheating, said Dickie. Downright, beastly mean,
low cheating. I'm not, said Achho, and you're another. Then
he began to cry too. I do not know how

(18:54):
the others felt, but I understand from Oswald that he
felt that now the honor of the House of Basket
had been stamped on in the dust, and it didn't
matter what happened. He looked at the beastly holly that
had been left over from the sauce and was stuck
up over the pictures. It now appeared hollow and disgusting,
though it had got quite a lot of berries, and
some of it was the varied kind, green and white.

(19:17):
The figs and dates and toffee were set out in
a doll's dinner service. The very side of it all
made Oswald blush sickly. He owns he would have liked
to cuff h O. And if he did, for a
moment wish to shake Alice the author, for one can
make allowances. Now. Alice choked and spluttered and wiped her

(19:38):
eyes fiercely, and said, it's no use ragging, h O.
It's my fault. I'm older than he is. Ho said
it couldn't be Alice's fault. I don't see as it
was wrong that, not, as murmured Dora, putting her arm
round the sinner who had brought this degrading blight upon
our family tree. But such sheers girls, a determined, an

(20:00):
affectionate silliness, tell sist all about it. Ho, dear, why
couldn't it be Alice's fault? Aho cuddled up to Dora
and said, snufflingly in his nose, because she hadn't got
nothing to do with it. I collected it all. She
never went into one of the houses. She didn't want to,
and then took all the credit of getting the money,

(20:22):
said Dickie savagely. Oswald said, not much credit in scornful tones.
Oh you are beastly, the whole lot of you, except Dora,
Alice said, stamping her foot in rage and despair. I
tore my frock on a nail going out, and I
didn't want to go back, and I got ho to

(20:43):
go to the houses alone, and I waited for him outside,
and I asked him not to say anything, because I
didn't want Dora to know about the frock. It's my
best and I don't know what he said inside. He
never told me, but I'll bet anything he didn't mean
to cheat. You said, lots of fine people will be
ready to give money to get pudding for poor children,

(21:03):
so I asked them to. Oswald, with his strong right hand,
waved a wave of passing things over. We'll talk about
that another time, he said. Just now, we've got weightier
things to deal with. He pointed to the pudding, which
had grown cold during the conversation to which I have alluded.

(21:24):
Aho stopped crying, but Alice went on with it. Oswald
now said, we're a base and outcast family. Until that
pudding's out of the house, we shan't be able to
look anyone in the face. We must see that that
pudding goes to poor children, not grizzling, grumpy, whiney, piney
pretending poor children, but real poor ones, just as poor

(21:45):
as they can stick. And the figs too, and the dates,
said Noel, with regretting tones. Every fig said Dickie sternly.
Oswald is quite right. This honorable made us feel a
bit better. We hastily put on our best things, and
washed ourselves a bit, and hurried out to find some

(22:07):
really poor people to give the pudding to. We cut
it in slices ready and put it in a basket
with the figs and dates and toffee. We would not
let h O come with us at first, because he
wanted to, and Alice would not come because of him.
So at last we had to let him. The excitement
of tearing into your best things heals the hurt that
wounded on a feels, as the poetry writer said, or

(22:30):
at any rate, it makes the hurt feel better. We
went out into the streets. They were pretty quiet. Nearly
everybody was eating its Christmas dessert. But presently we met
a woman in an apron. Oswald said, very politely, please,
are you a poor person? And she told us to
get along with us. The next we met was a

(22:52):
shabby man with a hole in his left boot. Again,
Oswald said, please, are you a poor person? And have
you any poor little children? The man told us not
to come any of our games with him, or we
should laugh on the wrong side of our faces. We
went on sadly. We had no heart to stop and
explain to him that we had no games to come.

(23:15):
The next was a young man near the obelisk. Dora
tried this time. She said, oh, if you please, we've
got some Christmas pudding in this basket, and if you're
a poor person you can have some poor as job,
said the young man in a hoarse voice, and he
had to come up out of a red comforter to
say it. We gave him a slice of the pudding

(23:35):
and he bit into it without thanks or delay. The
next minute he had thrown the pudding slap in Dora's
face and was clutching Dicky by the collar. BlimE me,
if I don't chuck you in the river. The whole
blooming lot of you, he exclaimed. The girl screamed, the
boys shouted, and though Oswald threw himself on the insulter

(23:56):
of his sister with all his manly vigor. Yet but
for a friend of Oswald who was in the police
passing at that instant, the author shudders to think what
might have happened. For he was a strong young man,
and Oswald is not yet come to his full strength.
And the quaggy runs all too near. Our policemen led
our assailant aside, and we waited anxiously as he told

(24:17):
us to. After long uncertain moments, the young man in
the comforter loafed off, grumbling, and our policeman turned to us, said,
you give him a dollar pudding and a toasted of
soap and hair oil. I suppose the hair oil must
have been the brown winseriness of the soap coming out.
We were sorry, but it was still our duty to

(24:37):
get rid of the pudding. The quaggy was handy, it
is true, but when you have collected money to feed
poor children and spent it on pudding, it is not
right to throw that pudding in the river. People did
not subscribe shillings and sixpences and half crowns to feed
a hungry flood with Christmas pudding. Yet we shrank from
asking any more people whether they were poor persons or

(24:59):
about their famis, and still more from offering the pudding
to chance people who might bite into it and taste
the soap. Before we had time to get away, it
was Alice, the most paralyzed with disgrace of all of us,
who thought of the best idea. She said, let's take
it to the workhouse. At any rate, they're all poor there,
and they mayn't go out without leave, so they can't

(25:21):
run after us to do anything to us after the pudding.
No one would give them leave to go out to
pursue people who had brought them pudding and wreck vengeance
on them. And at any rate we shall get rid
of the conscience pudding. It's a sort of conscience money,
you know. Only it isn't money, but pudding. The workhouse
is a good way. But we stuck to it, though
very cold and hungrier than we thought possible when we started,

(25:44):
for we had been so agitated we had not even
stayed to eat the plane pudding. Our good father had
so kindly and thoughtfully ordered for our Christmas dinner. The
big bell at the workhouse made a man open the
door to us when we rang it, Oswald said, And
he spoke because he is next eldest to Dora, and
she had had jolly well enough of saying anything about pudding.

(26:05):
He said, please, we've brought some pudding for the poor people.
He looked us up and down, and he looked at
our basket. Then he said, you'd better see the matron.
We waited in a hall, feeling more and more uncomfy,
and less and less like Christmas. We were very cold, indeed,
especially our hands and our noses, and we felt less

(26:27):
and less able to face the matron if she was horrid,
and one of us at least wished we had chosen
the quaggy for the pudding's long home, and made it
up to the robbed paw in some other way. Afterwards,
just as Alice was saying earnestly in the burning cold
ear of Oswald, let's put down the basket and make
a bolt for it, Oh, Oswald, let's a lady came

(26:48):
along the passage. She was very upright, and she had
eyes that went through you like blue gimlets. I should
not like to be obliged to thwart that lady if
she had any design, and mine was opposite. I'm glad
this is not likely to occur. She said, what's all
this about a pudding? Acho said at once, before we

(27:09):
could stop him, they say, I've stolen the pudding, so
we've brought her here for the poor people. No we didn't.
That wasn't why the money was given. It was meant
for the poor. Shut our, Pacho said, the rest of
us all at once. Then there was an awful silence.
The lady gimleted us again, one by one with her
blue eyes. Then she said, come into my room. You

(27:32):
all look frozen. She took us into a very jolly
room with velvet curtains and a big fire, and the
gas lighted because now it was almost dark even out
of doors. She gave us chairs, and Oswald felt as
if his was a dock. He felt so criminal, and
the lady looked so judgular. Then she took the arm

(27:52):
chair by the fire herself and said, who's the eldest
I am, said Dora, looking more like frightened white rabbit
than I've ever seen her. Then tell me all about it.
Dora looked at Alice and began to cry. That slab
of pudding in the face had totally unnerved the gentle girl.

(28:12):
Alice's eyes were red and her face was puffy with crying,
but she spoke up for Dora and said, oh, please,
let Oswald tell Dora. Can't she's tired with the long walk?
And a young man threw a piece of it in
her face, and the lady nodded, and Oswald began. He
told the story from the very beginning, as he has
always been taught to, though he hated to lay bare

(28:34):
the family honour's wound before a stranger. However, judge like
and gimlet eyed, he told all, not concealing the pudding
throwing nor what the young man had said about soap.
So he ended, we want to give the conscience pudding
to you. It's like conscience money. You know what that is,
don't you. But if you really think it is soapy

(28:55):
and not just the young man's horridness, perhaps you'd better
not let them meet it. But the pigs and things
we all right. When he had done, the lady said,
for most of us were crying more or less, come
cheer up. It's Christmas time and he's very little your brother,
I mean, and I think the rest of you seem
pretty well able to take care of the honor of

(29:15):
the family. I'll take the conscience pudding off your minds.
Where are you going now home, I suppose, Oswald said,
And he thought, how nasty and dark and dull it
would be. The fire out most lightly and farther away.
And your father's not at home, you say, The blue
Gimlet lady went on, what do you say to having

(29:38):
tea with me? And then seeing the entertainment we have
got up for our old people. Then the lady smiled,
and the blue Gimlets looked quite merry. The room was
so warm and comfortable, and the invitation was the last
thing we expected. It was jolly of her. I do
think no one thought quite at first of saying how

(29:58):
pleased we should be took accept her kind invitation. Instead
we all just said, oh, but in a tone which
must have told her we meant yes, please very deeply. Oswald,
this has more than once happened, was the first to
restore his manners. He made a proper bow, like he
has been toured, and said, thank you very much. We

(30:20):
should like it very much. It is very much nicer
than going home. Thank you very much. I need not
tell the reader that Oswald could have made up a
much better speech if he had had more time to
make it up in or if he had not been
so filled with mixed flusteredness and purification by the shameful
events of the day. We washed our faces and hands

(30:41):
and had a first rate muffin and crumpet tea, with
slices of cold meats and many nice jams and cakes.
A lot of other people were there, most of them
people who were giving the entertainment to the aged poor.
After tea, it was the entertainment songs and conjuring and
a play called Box and very amusing, and a lot

(31:01):
of throwing things about in it, bacon and chops and things,
and nigger minstrels. We clapped till our hands were sore.
When it was over, we said goodbye. In between the
songs and things, Oswald had had time to make up
a speech of thanks to the lady. He said, we
all thank you heartily for your goodness. The entertainment was beautiful.

(31:22):
We shall never forget your kindness and hospitableness. The lady
laughed and said she had been very pleased to have us,
A fat gentleman said, and your teas, I hope you
enjoyed those. Eh Oswald had not had time to make
up an answer to that, so he answered straight from
the heart and said rather, And every one laughed and

(31:45):
slapped us boys on the back and kissed the girls.
And the gentleman who played the bones in the Nigger
Minstrel saw us home. We ate the cold pudding that night,
and Ho dreamed that something came to eat him, like
it advises you to in the advertisements on the hoardings.
The grown up said it was the pudding, But I
don't think it could have been that, because, as I

(32:05):
have said more than once, it was so very plain.
Some of Ho's brothers and sisters thought it was a
judgment on him for pretending about who the poor children
were he was collecting the money for. Oswald's not believe
such a little boy as h O would have a
real judgment made just for him and nobody else whatever
he did. But it certainly is odd. Ho was the

(32:29):
only one who had bad dreams, and he was also
the only one who got any of the things we
bought with that ill gotten money, because you remember he
picked a hole in a raisin paper as he was
bringing the parcel home. The rest of us had nothing
unless you count the scrapings of the pudding basin, and
those don't really count at all. End of the conscience.

(32:52):
Pudding by EN's Pitt