Albert’s uncle said certainly. And they went by train with the bailiff from the farm, who was going in about some sheep-dip and to buy pigs. At any other time Oswald would not have been able to bear to leave the bailiff without seeing the pigs bought. But now it was different. For he and Alice had the weight on their bosoms of being thieves without having meant it—and nothing, not even pigs, had power to charm the young but honourable Oswald till that stain had been wiped away.
So he took Alice to the Secretary of the Maidstone Antiquities’ house, and Mr Turnbull was out, but the maid-servant kindly told us where the President lived, and ere long the trembling feet of the unfortunate brother and sister vibrated on the spotless gravel of Camperdown Villa.
When they asked, they were told that Mr Longchamps was at home. Then they waited, paralysed with undescribed emotions, in a large room with books and swords and glass bookcases with rotten-looking odds and ends in them. Mr Longchamps was a collector. That means he stuck to anything, no matter how ugly and silly, if only it was old.
He came in rubbing his hands, and very kind. He remembered us very well, he said, and asked what he could do for us.
Oswald for once was dumb. He could not find words in which to own himself the ass he had been. But Alice was less delicately moulded. She said—
‘Oh, if you please, we are most awfully sorry, and we hope you’ll forgive us, but we thought it would be such a pity for you and all the other poor dear Antiquities to come all that way and then find nothing Roman—so we put some pots and things in the barrow for you to find.’
‘So I perceived,’ said the President, stroking his white beard and smiling most agreeably at us; ‘a harmless joke, my dear! Youth’s the season for jesting. There’s no harm done—pray think no more about it. It’s very honourable of you to come and apologize, I’m sure.’
His brow began to wear the furrowed, anxious look of one who would fain be rid of his guests and get back to what he was doing before they interrupted him.
Alice said, ‘We didn’t come for that. It’s MUCH worse. Those were two REAL true Roman jugs you took away; we put them there; they aren’t ours. We didn’t know they were real Roman. We wanted to sell the Antiquities—I mean Antiquaries—and we were sold ourselves.’
‘This is serious,’ said the gentleman. ‘I suppose you’d know the—the “jugs” if you saw them again?’