'The fire-balloon!' replied Alice.
'What about it?' he rejoined, still calm and kind, though roused from his reviews.
'Why, it came to me all in a minute! Oh, Oswald—when it comes down—there are lots of farms in the march. Suppose it comes down and sets light to something! It's a crime—arsenic or something—and you can be hanged for it!'
'Don't be an idiot!' said Oswald kindly. 'The book wouldn't have told youths how to make them if they were crimes. Go back to bed, for goodness' sake!'
'I wish we hadn't—oh, I do!' said Alice.
But she did as she was told. Oswald has taught her this.
Next day her fears had stopped, like silent watches in the night, and we began to make a trap for badgers—in case we ever found one.
But Dicky went to the top of the mill with some field-glasses he had borrowed from Mr. Carrington to look at distant ships with, and he burst into the busy circle of badger-trap makers, and said:
'I say, come and look! There's a fire in the marsh!'
'There!' said Alice, dropping the wire pliers on her good elder brother's foot. 'What did I tell you?'