"Oh, so I am," remarked Dicky, trying to look surprised. "Well, my idea is let's be a sort of Industrious Society of Beavers, and make a solemn vow and covenant to make something every day. We might call it the Would-be-Clevers."
"It would be the Too-clever-by-half's before we'd done with it," said Oswald.
And Alice said, "We couldn't always make things that would be any good, and then we should have to do something that wasn't any good, and that would be rot. Yes, I know it's my turn—H.O., you'll kick the table to pieces if you go on like that. Do, for goodness' sake, keep your feet still. The only thing I can think of is a society called the Would-be-Boys."
"With you and Dora for members."
"And Noël—poets aren't boys exactly," said H.O.
"If you don't shut up you shan't be in it at all," said Alice, putting her arm round Noël. "No; I meant us all to be in it—only you boys are not to keep saying we're only girls, and let us do everything the same as you boys do."
"I don't want to be a boy, thank you," said Dora, "not when I see how they behave. H.O., do stop sniffing and use your handkerchief. Well, take mine, then."
It was now Noël's turn to disclose his idea, which proved most awful.
"Let's be Would-be-Poets," he said, "and solemnly vow and convenient to write one piece of poetry a day as long as we live."
Most of us were dumb at the dreadful thought. But Alice said—