After dinner we went out and sat with our feet in the stream.
People tell you it makes your grub disagree with you to do this just after meals, but it never hurts us. There is a fallen willow across the stream that just seats the eight of us, only the ones at the end can't get their feet into the water properly because of the bushes, so we keep changing places. We had got some liquorice root to chew. This helps thought. Dora broke a peaceful silence with this speech--'Free drinks.'
The words awoke a response in every breast.
'I wonder someone doesn't,' H. O. said, leaning back till he nearly toppled in, and was only saved by Oswald and Alice at their own deadly peril.
'Do for goodness sake sit still, H. O.,' observed Alice. 'It would be a glorious act! I wish WE could.'
'What, sit still?' asked H. O.
'No, my child,' replied Oswald, 'most of us can do that when we try. Your angel sister was only wishing to set up free drinks for the poor and thirsty.'
'Not for all of them,' Alice said, 'just a few. Change places now, Dicky. My feet aren't properly wet at all.'
It is very difficult to change places safely on the willow. The changers have to crawl over the laps of the others, while the rest sit tight and hold on for all they're worth. But the hard task was accomplished and then Alice went on--'And we couldn't do it for always, only a day or two--just while our money held out. Eiffel Tower lemonade's the best, and you get a jolly lot of it for your money too. There must be a great many sincerely thirsty persons go along the Dover Road every day.'
'It wouldn't be bad. We've got a little chink between us,' said Oswald.
'And then think how the poor grateful creatures would linger and tell us about their inmost sorrows. It would be most frightfully interesting. We could write all their agonied life histories down afterwards like All the Year Round Christmas numbers. Oh, do let's!'
Alice was wriggling so with earnestness that Dicky thumped her to make her calm.
'We might do it, just for one day,' Oswald said, 'but it wouldn't be much--only a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous dryness of all the people in the whole world. Still, every little helps, as the mermaid said when she cried into the sea.'
'I know a piece of poetry about that,' Denny said.
'Small things are best.
Care and unrest To wealth and rank are given, But little things On little wings-- do something or other, I forget what, but it means the same as Oswald was saying about the mermaid.'
'What are you going to call it?' asked Noel, coming out of a dream.
'Call what?'
'The Free Drinks game.'
'It's a horrid shame If the Free Drinks game Doesn't have a name.
You would be to blame If anyone came And--'
'Oh, shut up!' remarked Dicky. 'You've been making that rot up all the time we've been talking instead of listening properly.' Dicky hates poetry. I don't mind it so very much myself, especially Macaulay's and Kipling's and Noel's.
'There was a lot more--"lame" and "dame" and name" and "game" and things--and now I've forgotten it,' Noel said in gloom.
'Never mind,' Alice answered, 'it'll come back to you in the silent watches of the night; you see if it doesn't. But really, Noel's right, it OUGHT to have a name.'
'Free Drinks Company.' 'Thirsty Travellers' Rest.' 'The Travellers' joy.'
These names were suggested, but not cared for extra.
Then someone said--I think it was Oswald-- 'Why not "The House Beautiful"?'
'It can't be a house, it must be in the road. It'll only be a stall.'
'The "Stall Beautiful" is simply silly,' Oswald said.
'The "Bar Beautiful" then,' said Dicky, who knows what the 'Rose and Crown' bar is like inside, which of course is hidden from girls.
'Oh, wait a minute,' cried the Dentist, snapping his fingers like he always does when he is trying to remember things. 'I thought of something, only Daisy tickled me and it's gone--I know--let's call it the Benevolent Bar!'
It was exactly right, and told the whole truth in two words.
'Benevolent' showed it was free and 'Bar' showed what was free; e.g. things to drink. The 'Benevolent Bar' it was.
We went home at once to prepare for the morrow, for of course we meant to do it the very next day. Procrastination is you know what--and delays are dangerous. If we had waited long we might have happened to spend our money on something else.
The utmost secrecy had to be observed, because Mrs Pettigrew hates tramps. Most people do who keep fowls. Albert's uncle was in London till the next evening, so we could not consult him, but we know he is always chock full of intelligent sympathy with the poor and needy.
Acting with the deepest disguise, we made an awning to cover the Benevolent Bar keepers from the searching rays of the monarch of the skies. We found some old striped sun-blinds in the attic, and the girls sewed them together. They were not very big when they were done, so we added the girls' striped petticoats. I am sorry their petticoats turn up so constantly in my narrative, but they really are very useful, especially when the band is cut off. The girls borrowed Mrs Pettigrew's sewing-machine; they could not ask her leave without explanations, which we did not wish to give just then, and she had lent it to them before. They took it into the cellar to work it, so that she should not hear the noise and ask bothering questions.
They had to balance it on one end of the beer-stand. It was not easy. While they were doing the sewing we boys went out and got willow poles and chopped the twigs off, and got ready as well as we could to put up the awning.
When we returned a detachment of us went down to the shop in the village for Eiffel Tower lemonade. We bought seven-and-sixpence worth; then we made a great label to say what the bar was for.
Then there was nothing else to do except to make rosettes out of a blue sash of Daisy's to show we belonged to the Benevolent Bar.
The next day was as hot as ever. We rose early from our innocent slumbers, and went out to the Dover Road to the spot we had marked down the day before. It was at a cross-roads, so as to be able to give drinks to as many people as possible.
