BEING THE FURTHER ADVENTURES
  OF THE TREASURE SEEKERS

   TO
   My Dear Son
   Fabian Bland
 
  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
                 representative
                    of the family.

    We felt it
           all the more
         because we
            had not really meant
              to do anything wrong.

    We only
         thought perhaps the grown-ups
        would not be quite pleased
         if they knew,
           and that is quite different.

    Besides,
           we meant
              to put
                   all the things back
                 in their proper places
             when we
                had done with them
             before anyone
                  found out about it.

    But I must not anticipate
         (that means
              telling the end
                   of the story
             before the beginning.

    I tell you this
         because it
            is so sickening to have
             words you
              don't know in a story,
           and to be
              told to look it
                   up in the dicker).

    We are the Bastables
          --Oswald,
           Dora,
         Dicky,
           Alice,
         Noel,
           and H. O.

    If you want to know
         why we call
               our youngest brother H. O.

    you can jolly well
          read The Treasure Seekers
               and find out.

    We were the Treasure Seekers,
           and we sought
               it high and low,
         and quite regularly,
           because we particularly
              wanted to find it.

    And at last
         we did not find it,
           but we