. They drank, but not as if they cared about it very much, and then
they set their glasses down on the table, a liberty no one else had
entered into, and began to try and chaff Oswald. Oswald said in an
undervoice to H. O.:

"Just take charge. I want to speak to the girls a sec. Call if you want
anything." And then he drew the others away, to say he thought there'd
been enough of it, and considering the boys and the new three men,
perhaps we'd better chuck it and go home. We'd been benevolent nearly
four hours anyway.

While this conversation and the objections of the others were going on,
H. O. perpetuated an act which nearly wrecked the Benevolent Bar.

Of course Oswald was not an eye or ear witness of what happened, but
from what H. O. said in the calmer moments of later life, I think this
was about what happened:

One of the big disagreeable men said to H. O.:

"Ain't got such a thing as a drop o' spirit, 'ave yer?"

H. O. said no, we hadn't, only lemonade and tea.

"Lemonade and tea! blank" (bad word I told you about) "and blazes,"
replied the bad character, for such he afterwards proved to be. "What's
_that_ then?"

He pointed to a bottle labelled Dewar's whiskey, which stood on the
table near the spirit-kettle.

"Oh, is _that_ what you want?" said H. O., kindly.

The man is understood to have said he should bloomin' well think so, but
H. O. is not sure about the bloomin'.

He held out his glass with about half the lemonade in it, and H. O.
generously filled up the tumbler out of the bottle labelled Dewar's
whiskey. The man took a great drink, and then suddenly he spat out what
happened to be left in his mouth just then, and began to swear. It was
then that Oswald and Dicky rushed upon the scene. The man was shaking
his fist in H. O.'s face, and H. O. was still holding on to the bottle
we had brought out the methylated spirit in for the lamp, in case of any
one wanting tea, which they hadn't.

"If I was Jim," said the second ruffian, for such indeed they were, when
he had snatched the bottle from H. O. and smelt it, "I'd chuck the whole
show over the hedge, so I would, and you young gutter-snipes after it,
so I wouldn't."

Oswald saw in a moment that in point of strength, if not numbers, he and
his party were outmatched, and the unfriendly boys were drawing gladly
near. It is no shame to signal for help when in distress--the best ships
do it every day. Oswald shouted "Help! help!" Before the words