Edith Nesbit: Children's Books Collection (Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит

      Chapter XV.

       ‘Lo, the Poor Indian!’

       Table of Contents

      It was all very well for Father to ask us not to make a row because the Indian Uncle was coming to talk business, but my young brother’s boots are not the only things that make a noise. We took his boots away and made him wear Dora’s bath slippers, which are soft and woolly, and hardly any soles to them; and of course we wanted to see the Uncle, so we looked over the banisters when he came, and we were as quiet as mice — but when Eliza had let him in she went straight down to the kitchen and made the most awful row you ever heard, it sounded like the Day of judgement, or all the saucepans and crockery in the house being kicked about the floor, but she told me afterwards it was only the tea-tray and one or two cups and saucers, that she had knocked over in her flurry. We heard the Uncle say, ‘God bless my soul!’ and then he went into Father’s study and the door was shut — we didn’t see him properly at all that time.

       WE WERE LOOKING OVER THE BANISTERS

      I don’t believe the dinner was very nice. Something got burned I’m sure — for we smelt it. It was an extra smell, besides the mutton.

      I know that got burned. Eliza wouldn’t have any of us in the kitchen except Dora — till dinner was over. Then we got what was left of the dessert, and had it on the stairs — just round the corner where they can’t see you from the hall, unless the first landing gas is lighted. Suddenly the study door opened and the Uncle came out and went and felt in his greatcoat pocket. It was his cigar-case he wanted. We saw that afterwards. We got a much better view of him then. He didn’t look like an Indian but just like a kind of brown, big Englishman, and of course he didn’t see us, but we heard him mutter to himself —

      ‘Shocking bad dinner! Eh! — what?’

      When he went back to the study he didn’t shut the door properly. That door has always been a little tiresome since the day we took the lock off to get out the pencil sharpener H. O. had shoved into the keyhole. We didn’t listen — really and truly — but the Indian Uncle has a very big voice, and Father was not going to be beaten by a poor Indian in talking or anything else — so he spoke up too, like a man, and I heard him say it was a very good business, and only wanted a little capital — and he said it as if it was an imposition he had learned, and he hated having to say it. The Uncle said, ‘Pooh, pooh!’ to that, and then he said he was afraid that what that same business wanted was not capital but management. Then I heard my Father say, ‘It is not a pleasant subject: I am sorry I introduced it. Suppose we change it, sir. Let me fill your glass.’ Then the poor Indian said something about vintage — and that a poor, broken-down man like he was couldn’t be too careful. And then Father said, ‘Well, whisky then,’ and afterwards they talked about Native Races and Imperial something or other and it got very dull.

      So then Oswald remembered that you must not hear what people do not intend you to hear — even if you are not listening and he said, ‘We ought not to stay here any longer. Perhaps they would not like us to hear —’

      Alice said, ‘Oh, do you think it could possibly matter?’ and went and shut the study door softly but quite tight. So it was no use staying there any longer, and we went to the nursery.

      Then Noel said, ‘Now I understand. Of course my Father is making a banquet for the Indian, because he is a poor, broken-down man. We might have known that from “Lo, the poor Indian!” you know.’

      We all agreed with him, and we were glad to have the thing explained, because we had not understood before what Father wanted to have people to dinner for — and not let us come in.

      ‘Poor people are very proud,’ said Alice, ‘and I expect Father thought the Indian would be ashamed, if all of us children knew how poor he was.’

      Then Dora said, ‘Poverty is no disgrace. We should honour honest Poverty.’

      And we all agreed that that was so.

      ‘I wish his dinner had not been so nasty,’ Dora said, while Oswald put lumps of coal on the fire with his fingers, so as not to make a noise. He is a very thoughtful boy, and he did not wipe his fingers on his trouser leg as perhaps Noel or H. O. would have done, but he just rubbed them on Dora’s handkerchief while she was talking.

      ‘I am afraid the dinner was horrid.’ Dora went on. ‘The table looked very nice with the flowers we got. I set it myself, and Eliza made me borrow the silver spoons and forks from Albert-next-door’s Mother.’

      ‘I hope the poor Indian is honest,’ said Dicky gloomily, ‘when you are a poor, broken-down man silver spoons must be a great temptation.’

      Oswald told him not to talk such tommy-rot because the Indian was a relation, so of course he couldn’t do anything dishonourable. And Dora said it was all right any way, because she had washed up the spoons and forks herself and counted them, and they were all there, and she had put them into their wash-leather bag, and taken them back to Albert-next-door’s Mother.

      ‘And the brussels sprouts were all wet and swimmy,’ she went on, ‘and the potatoes looked grey — and there were bits of black in the gravy — and the mutton was bluey-red and soft in the middle. I saw it when it came out. The apple-pie looked very nice — but it wasn’t quite done in the apply part. The other thing that was burnt — you must have smelt it, was the soup.’

      ‘It is a pity,’ said Oswald; ‘I don’t suppose he gets a good dinner every day.’

      ‘No more do we,’ said H. O., ‘but we shall tomorrow.’

      I thought of all the things we had bought with our half-sovereign — the rabbit and the sweets and the almonds and raisins and figs and the coconut: and I thought of the nasty mutton and things, and while I was thinking about it all Alice said —

      ‘Let’s ask the poor Indian to come to dinner with us tomorrow.’ I should have said it myself if she had given me time.

      We got the little ones to go to bed by promising to put a note on their dressing-table saying what had happened, so that they might know the first thing in the morning, or in the middle of the night if they happened to wake up, and then we elders arranged everything.

      I waited by the back door, and when the Uncle was beginning to go Dicky was to drop a marble down between the banisters for a signal, so that I could run round and meet the Uncle as he came out.

      This seems like deceit, but if you are a thoughtful and considerate boy you will understand that we could not go down and say to the Uncle in the hall under Father’s eye, ‘Father has given you a beastly, nasty dinner, but if you will come to dinner with us tomorrow, we will show you our idea of good things to eat.’ You will see, if you think it over, that this would not have been at all polite to Father.

      So when the Uncle left, Father saw him to the door and let him out, and then went back to the study, looking very sad, Dora says.

      As the poor Indian came down our steps he saw me there at the gate.

      I did not mind his being poor, and I said, ‘Good evening, Uncle,’ just as politely as though he had been about to ascend into one of the gilded chariots of the rich and affluent,