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123 pages

English

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Lovers of classic children's literature will delight in The Story of the Treasure Seekers from noted British author E. Nesbit. This engaging tale about the plucky Bastable clan and their plan to improve their family's financial fortunes influenced many twentieth-century juvenile fiction writers, including C.S. Lewis.

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Children's

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Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 avril 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775452232
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE STORY OF THE TREASURE SEEKERS
* * *
E. NESBIT

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The Story of the Treasure Seekers First published in 1899 ISBN 978-1-775452-23-2 © 2011 The Floating Press While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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Chapter 1 - The Council of Ways and Means Chapter 2 - Digging for Treasure Chapter 3 - Being Detectives Chapter 4 - Good Hunting Chapter 5 - The Poet and the Editor Chapter 6 - Noel's Princess Chapter 7 - Being Bandits Chapter 8 - Being Editors Chapter 9 - The G. B. Chapter 10 - Lord Tottenham Chapter 11 - Castilian Amoroso Chapter 12 - The Nobleness of Oswald Chapter 13 - The Robber and the Burglar Chapter 14 - The Divining-Rod Chapter 15 - 'Lo, the Poor Indian!' Chapter 16 - The End of the Treasure-Seeking
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The Story of the Treasure Seekers
Being the adventures of the Bastable children in search of a fortune
TO OSWALD BARRON Without whom this book could never have been written
The Treasure Seekers is dedicated in memory of childhoods identical butfor the accidents of time and space
Chapter 1 - The Council of Ways and Means
*
This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and Ithink when you have read it you will see that we were not lazy about thelooking.
There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about thetreasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know howbeastly it is when a story begins, "'Alas!" said Hildegarde with a deepsigh, "we must look our last on this ancestral home"'—and then some oneelse says something—and you don't know for pages and pages where thehome is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it. Our ancestral homeis in the Lewisham Road. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not alarge one. We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father. OurMother is dead, and if you think we don't care because I don't tell youmuch about her you only show that you do not understand people at all.Dora is the eldest. Then Oswald—and then Dicky. Oswald won the Latinprize at his preparatory school—and Dicky is good at sums. Aliceand Noel are twins: they are ten, and Horace Octavius is my youngestbrother. It is one of us that tells this story—but I shall not tell youwhich: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is goingon you may be trying to guess, only I bet you don't. It was Oswaldwho first thought of looking for treasure. Oswald often thinks of veryinteresting things. And directly he thought of it he did not keep itto himself, as some boys would have done, but he told the others, andsaid—
'I'll tell you what, we must go and seek for treasure: it is always whatyou do to restore the fallen fortunes of your House.'
Dora said it was all very well. She often says that. She was trying tomend a large hole in one of Noel's stockings. He tore it on a nail whenwe were playing shipwrecked mariners on top of the chicken-house the dayH. O. fell off and cut his chin: he has the scar still. Dora is the onlyone of us who ever tries to mend anything. Alice tries to make thingssometimes. Once she knitted a red scarf for Noel because his chestis delicate, but it was much wider at one end than the other, and hewouldn't wear it. So we used it as a pennon, and it did very well,because most of our things are black or grey since Mother died; andscarlet was a nice change. Father does not like you to ask for newthings. That was one way we had of knowing that the fortunes of theancient House of Bastable were really fallen. Another way was that therewas no more pocket-money—except a penny now and then to the littleones, and people did not come to dinner any more, like they used to,with pretty dresses, driving up in cabs—and the carpets got holes inthem—and when the legs came off things they were not sent to be mended,and we gave up having the gardener except for the front garden, andnot that very often. And the silver in the big oak plate-chest that islined with green baize all went away to the shop to have the dentsand scratches taken out of it, and it never came back. We think Fatherhadn't enough money to pay the silver man for taking out the dents andscratches. The new spoons and forks were yellowy-white, and not so heavyas the old ones, and they never shone after the first day or two.
Father was very ill after Mother died; and while he was ill hisbusiness-partner went to Spain—and there was never much moneyafterwards. I don't know why. Then the servants left and there was onlyone, a General. A great deal of your comfort and happiness depends onhaving a good General. The last but one was nice: she used to make jollygood currant puddings for us, and let us have the dish on the floorand pretend it was a wild boar we were killing with our forks. But theGeneral we have now nearly always makes sago puddings, and they arethe watery kind, and you cannot pretend anything with them, not evenislands, like you do with porridge.
Then we left off going to school, and Father said we should go to a goodschool as soon as he could manage it. He said a holiday would do us allgood. We thought he was right, but we wished he had told us he couldn'tafford it. For of course we knew.
Then a great many people used to come to the door with envelopes withno stamps on them, and sometimes they got very angry, and said theywere calling for the last time before putting it in other hands. I askedEliza what that meant, and she kindly explained to me, and I was sosorry for Father.
And once a long, blue paper came; a policeman brought it, and we wereso frightened. But Father said it was all right, only when he went upto kiss the girls after they were in bed they said he had been crying,though I'm sure that's not true. Because only cowards and snivellerscry, and my Father is the bravest man in the world.
So you see it was time we looked for treasure and Oswald said so, andDora said it was all very well. But the others agreed with Oswald. So weheld a council. Dora was in the chair—the big dining-room chair, thatwe let the fireworks off from, the Fifth of November when we had themeasles and couldn't do it in the garden. The hole has never beenmended, so now we have that chair in the nursery, and I think it wascheap at the blowing-up we boys got when the hole was burnt.
'We must do something,' said Alice, 'because the exchequer is empty.'She rattled the money-box as she spoke, and it really did rattle becausewe always keep the bad sixpence in it for luck.
'Yes—but what shall we do?' said Dicky. 'It's so jolly easy to saylet's do something .' Dicky always wants everything settled exactly.Father calls him the Definite Article.
'Let's read all the books again. We shall get lots of ideas out ofthem.' It was Noel who suggested this, but we made him shut up, becausewe knew well enough he only wanted to get back to his old books. Noelis a poet. He sold some of his poetry once—and it was printed, but thatdoes not come in this part of the story.
Then Dicky said, 'Look here. We'll be quite quiet for ten minutes bythe clock—and each think of some way to find treasure. And when we'vethought we'll try all the ways one after the other, beginning with theeldest.'
'I shan't be able to think in ten minutes, make it half an hour,' saidH. O. His real name is Horace Octavius, but we call him H. O. because ofthe advertisement, and it's not so very long ago he was afraid to passthe hoarding where it says 'Eat H. O.' in big letters. He says it waswhen he was a little boy, but I remember last Christmas but one, he wokein the middle of the night crying and howling, and they said it was thepudding. But he told me afterwards he had been dreaming that they really had come to eat H. O., and it couldn't have been the pudding, when youcome to think of it, because it was so very plain.
Well, we made it half an hour—and we all sat quiet, and thought andthought. And I made up my mind before two minutes were over, and Isaw the others had, all but Dora, who is always an awful time overeverything. I got pins and needles in my leg from sitting still so long,and when it was seven minutes H. O. cried out—'Oh, it must be more thanhalf an hour!'
H. O. is eight years old, but he cannot tell the clock yet. Oswald couldtell the clock when he was six.
We all stretched ourselves and began to speak at once, but Dora put upher hands to her ears and said—
'One at a time, please. We aren't playing Babel.' (It is a very goodgame. Did you ever play it?)
So Dora made us all sit in a row on the floor, in ages, and then shepointed at us with the finger that had the brass thimble on. Her silverone got lost when the last General but two went away. We think she musthave forgotten it was Dora's and put it in her box by mistake. She was avery forgetful girl. She used to forget what she had spent money on, sothat the change was never quite right.
Oswald spoke first. 'I think we might stop people on Blackheath—withcrape masks and horse-pistols—and say "Your money or your life!Resistance is useless, we are armed to the teeth"—like Dick Turpinand Claude Duval. It wouldn't matter about not having horses, becausecoaches have gone out too.'
Dora screwed up her nose the way she always does when she is going totalk like the good elder sister in books, and said, 'That would bevery wrong: it's like pickpocketing or taking pennies out of Father'sgreat-coat when it's hanging in the hall.'
I must say I don't think she need have said that, especially before thelittle ones—for it was when I was only four.
But Oswald was not