The Wouldbegoods, Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers

MP3 Audio CD. The Wouldbegoods, Being the Further Adventures of the Treasure Seekers

CHAPTER 1. THE JUNGLE



Children are like jam: all very well in the proper place, but you can’t
stand them all over the shop--eh, what?’

These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us feel
very young and angry; and yet we could not be comforted by calling him
names to ourselves, as you do when nasty grown-ups say nasty things,
because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite when not
irritated. And we could not think it ungentlemanly of him to say we were
like jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice indeed--only not on
furniture and improper places like that. My father said, ‘Perhaps they
had better go to boarding-school.’ And that was awful, because we know
Father disapproves of boarding-schools. And he looked at us and said, ‘I
am ashamed of them, sir!’

Your lot is indeed a dark and terrible one when your father is ashamed
of you. And we all knew this, so that we felt in our chests just as if
we had swallowed a hard-boiled egg whole. At least, this is what
Oswald felt, and Father said once that Oswald, as the eldest, was the
representative of the family, so, of course, the others felt the same.

And then everybody said nothing for a short time. At last Father said--

‘You may go--but remember--’

The words that followed I am not going to tell you. It is no use telling
you what you know before--as they do in schools. And you must all have
had such words said to you many times. We went away when it was over.
The girls cried, and we boys got out books and began to read, so that
nobody should think we cared. But we felt it deeply in our interior
hearts, especially Oswald, who is the eldest and the repres