papers and firewood we did it, and when it was done up with lots of
string and the paper artfully squeezed tight to the firewood to look
like the Turk's legs it really was almost lifelike in its deceivingness.
The chains, or sausages, we did with dusters--and not clean ones--rolled
tight, and the paper moulded gently to their forms. The plum-pudding was
a newspaper ball. The mince-pies were newspapers too, and so were the
almonds and raisins. The box of figs was a real fig-box with cinders
and ashes in it damped to keep them from rattling about. The French-plum
bottle was real too. It had newspaper soaked in ink in it, and the cake
was half a muff-box of Dora's done up very carefully and put at the
bottom of the hamper. Inside the muff-box we put a paper with--

"Revenge is not wrong when the other people begin. It was you began, and
now you are jolly well served out."

We packed all the bottles and parcels into the hamper, and put the list
on the very top, pinned to the paper that covered the false breast of
the imitation Turk.

Dicky wanted to write--"From an unknown friend," but we did not think
that was fair, considering how Dicky felt.

So at last we put--"From one who does not wish to sign his name."

And that was true, at any rate.

Dicky and Oswald lugged the hamper down to the shop that has Carter
Paterson's board outside.

"I vote we don't pay the carriage," said Dicky, but that was perhaps
because he was still so very angry about being pulled off the train.
Oswald had not had it done to him, so he said that we ought to pay the
carriage. And he was jolly glad afterwards that this honourable feeling
had arisen in his young bosom, and that he had jolly well made Dicky let
it rise in his.

We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but Dicky said it was
cheap for a high-class revenge like this, and after all it was his money
the carriage was paid with.

So then we went home and had another go in of grub--because tea had been
rather upset by Dicky's revenge.

The people where we left the hamper told us that it would be delivered
next day. So next morning we gloated over the thought of the sell that
porter was in for, and Dicky was more deeply gloating than any one.

"I expect it's got there by now," he said at dinner-time; "it's a first
class booby-trap; what a sell for him! He'll read the list and then
he'll take out one parcel after another till he comes to the cake. It
_was_ a ripping idea! I