Dicky looked up from the paper he was reading and said, ‘This sounds likely,’ and he read out--
‘L100 secures partnership in lucrative business for sale of useful patent. L10 weekly. No personal attendance necessary. Jobbins, 300, Old Street Road.’
‘I wish we could secure that partnership,’ said Oswald. He is twelve, and a very thoughtful boy for his age.
Alice looked up from her painting. She was trying to paint a fairy queen’s frock with green bice, and it wouldn’t rub. There is something funny about green bice. It never will rub off; no matter how expensive your paintbox is--and even boiling water is very little use.
She said, ‘Bother the bice! And, Oswald, it’s no use thinking about that. Where are we to get a hundred pounds?’
‘Ten pounds a week is five pounds to us,’ Oswald went on--he had done the sum in his head while Alice was talking--‘because partnership means halves. It would be A1.’
Noel sat sucking his pencil--he had been writing poetry as usual. I saw the first two lines--
I wonder why Green Bice Is never very nice.
Suddenly he said, ‘I wish a fairy would come down the chimney and drop a jewel on the table--a jewel worth just a hundred pounds.’
‘She might as well give you the hundred pounds while she was about it,’ said Dora.
‘Or while she was about it she might as well give us five pounds a week,’ said Alice.
I saw H. O. open his mouth, and I knew he was going to say, ‘Or five thousand,’ so I said--
‘Well, she won’t give us fivepence, but if you’d only do as I am always saying, and rescue a wealthy old gentleman from deadly peril he would give us a pot of money, and we could have the partnership and five pounds a week. Five pounds a week would buy a great many things.’
Then Dicky said, ‘Why shouldn’t we borrow it?’ So we said, ‘Who from?’ and then he read this out of the paper--
MONEY PRIVATELY WITHOUT FEES THE BOND STREET BANK Manager, Z. Rosenbaum.
Advances cash from L20 to L10,000 on ladies’ or gentlemen’s note of hand alone, without security. No fees. No inquiries. Absolute privacy guaranteed.
‘It means that there is a kind gentleman who has a lot of money, and he doesn’t know enough poor people to help, so he puts it in the paper that he will help them, by lending them his money--that’s it, isn’t it, Dicky?’