"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," said Dicky 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 H.O. to 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 kind people would be ready to give money to get pudding for poor children. 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. H.O. 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 any one in the face. We must see that that pudding goes to poor children--not grisling, grumpy, whiney-piney, pretending poor children--but real poor ones, just as poor as they can stick." "And the figs too--and the dates," said Noel, with regretting tones. "Every fig," said Dicky sternly. "Oswald is quite right." This honourable resolution made us feel a bit better. We hastily put on our best things, and washed ourselves a bit, and hurried out to find some 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 honour feels, as the poetry writer said--or 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 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. 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."