e all went into Maidstone, and came
back with the most beautiful lot of brown paper parcels, with things
inside that supplied long-felt wants. But none of them belong to this
narration, except what Oswald and Denny clubbed to buy.

This was a pistol, and it took all the money they both had, but when
Oswald felt the uncomfortable inside sensation that reminds you who it
is and his money that are soon parted he said to himself:

"I don't care. We ought to have a pistol in the house, and one that will
go off, too--not those rotten flint-locks. Suppose there should be
burglars and us totally unarmed?"

We took it in turns to have the pistol, and we decided always to
practise with it far from the house, so as not to frighten the
grown-ups, who are always much nervouser about firearms than we are.

It was Denny's idea getting it; and Oswald owns it surprised him, but
the boy was much changed in his character. We got it while the others
were grubbing at the pastry-cook's in the High Street, and we said
nothing till after tea, though it was hard not to fire at the birds on
the telegraph wires as we came home in the train.

After tea we called a council in the straw-loft, and Oswald said:

"Denny and I have got a secret."

"I know what it is," Dicky said, contemptibly. "You've found out that
shop in Maidstone where peppermint rock is four ounces a penny. H. O.
and I found it out before you did."

Oswald said, "You shut up. If you don't want to hear the secret you'd
better bunk. I'm going to administer the secret oath."

This is a very solemn oath, and only used about real things, and never
for pretending ones, so Dicky said:

"Oh, all right; go ahead! I thought you were only rotting."

So they all took the secret oath. Noel made it up long before, when he
had found the first thrush's nest we ever saw in the Blackheath garden:

"I will not tell, I will not reveal,
I will not touch, or try to steal;
And may I be called a beastly sneak,
If this great secret I ever repeat."

It is a little wrong about the poetry, but it is a very binding promise.
They all repeated it, down to H. O.

"Now then," Dicky said, "what's up?"

Oswald, in proud silence, drew the pistol from his breast and held it
out, and there was a murmur of awful amazement and respect from every
one of the council. The pistol was not loaded, so we let even the girls
have it to look at.

And then Dicky said, "Let's go hunting."

And w