der than you think. First we had to decide what sort of illness
we should like to cure, and a 'heated discussion ensued', like in
Parliament.

Dora wanted it to be something to make the complexion of dazzling
fairness, but we remembered how her face came all red and rough when
she used the Rosabella soap that was advertised to make the darkest
complexion fair as the lily, and she agreed that perhaps it was better
not. Noel wanted to make the medicine first and then find out what
it would cure, but Dicky thought not, because there are so many more
medicines than there are things the matter with us, so it would be
easier to choose the disease first. Oswald would have liked wounds.
I still think it was a good idea, but Dicky said, 'Who has wounds,
especially now there aren't any wars? We shouldn't sell a bottle a day!'
So Oswald gave in because he knows what manners are, and it was Dicky's
idea. H. O. wanted a cure for the uncomfortable feeling that they give
you powders for, but we explained to him that grown-up people do not
have this feeling, however much they eat, and he agreed. Dicky said
he did not care a straw what the loathsome disease was, as long as we
hurried up and settled on something. Then Alice said--

'It ought to be something very common, and only one thing. Not the pains
in the back and all the hundreds of things the people have in somebody's
syrup. What's the commonest thing of all?'

And at once we said, 'Colds.'

So that was settled.

Then we wrote a label to go on the bottle. When it was written it would
not go on the vinegar bottle that we had got, but we knew it would go
small when it was printed. It was like this:

BASTABLE'S
CERTAIN CURE FOR COLDS
Coughs, Asthma, Shortness of Breath, and all infections of the Chest

One dose gives immediate relief
It will cure your cold in one bottle
Especially the larger size at 3s. 6d.
Order at once of the Makers
To prevent disappointment

Makers:

D., O., R., A., N., and H. O. BASTABLE
150, Lewisham Road, S.E.

(A halfpenny for all bottles returned)

------------

Of course the next thing was for one of us to catch a cold and try what
cured it; we all wanted to be the one, but it was Dicky's idea, and he
said he was not going to be done out of it, so we let him. It was only
fair. He left off his undershirt that very day, and next morning he