‘Oh, shut up!’ Dicky said with anxious scorn.
With one accord we turned back. We all felt THE feeling—the one that means something fatal being up and it being your fault.
‘Perhaps, Alice said, ‘a beautiful young lady in a muslin dress was passing by, and a spark flew on to her, and now she is rolling in agony enveloped in flames.’
We could not see the fire now, because of the corner of the wood, but we hoped Alice was mistaken.
But when we got in sight of the scene of our pottering industry we saw it was as bad nearly as Alice’s wild dream. For the wooden fence leading up to the bridge had caught fire, and it was burning like billy oh.
Oswald started to run; so did the others. As he ran he said to himself, ‘This is no time to think about your clothes. Oswald, be bold!’
And he was.
A
