cocoanut he had won at the fair,
and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book. Oswald thought, and he
still thinks, that this was a fair exchange, and so did Noel at the
time, and he agreed to it, and was quite pleased till the girls said it
wasn't fair, and Oswald had the best of it. And then that young beggar
Noel wanted the ball back, but Oswald, though not angry, was firm.

"You said it was a bargain, and you shook hands on it," he said, and he
said it quite kindly and calmly.

Noel said he didn't care. He wanted his cricket-ball back.

And the girls said it was a horrid shame.

If they had not said that, Oswald might yet have consented to let Noel
have the beastly ball, but now, of course, he was not going to. He said:

"Oh yes, I dare say. And then you would be wanting the cocoanut and
things again the next minute."

"No, I shouldn't," Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H. O. had
eaten the cocoanut, which only made it worse. And it made them worse,
too--which is what the book calls poetic justice.

Dora said, "I don't think it was fair," and even Alice said:

"Do let him have it back, Oswald." I wish to be just to Alice. She did
not know then about the cocoanut having been secretly wolfed up.

We were in the garden. Oswald felt all the feelings of the hero when the
opposing forces gathered about him are opposing as hard as ever they
can. He knew he was not unfair, and he did not like to be jawed at just
because Noel had eaten the cocoanut and wanted the ball back. Though
Oswald did not know then about the eating of the cocoanut, but he felt
the injustice in his soul all the same.

Noel said afterwards he meant to offer Oswald something else to make up
for the cocoanut, but he said nothing about this at the time.

"Give it me, I say," Noel said.

And Oswald said, "Sha'n't!"

Then Noel called Oswald names, and Oswald did not answer back but just
kept smiling pleasantly, and carelessly throwing up the ball and
catching it again with an air of studied indifference.

It was Martha's fault that what happened happened. She is the bull-dog,
and very stout and heavy. She had just been let loose and she came
bounding along in her clumsy way, and jumped up on Oswald, who is
beloved by all dumb animals. (You know how sagacious they are.) Well,
Martha knocked the ball out of Oswald's hands, and it fell on the grass,
and Noel pounced on it like a hooded falcon on its prey. Oswald would
scorn to deny