The others said nothing.
Oswald went on: ‘I move that we chuck—I mean dissolve—the Wouldbegoods Society; its appointed task is done. If it’s not well done, that’s ITS fault and not ours.’
Dicky said, ‘Hear! hear! I second this prop.’
The unexpected Dentist said, ‘I third it. At first I thought it would help, but afterwards I saw it only made you want to be naughty, just because you were a Wouldbegood.’
Oswald owns he was surprised. We put it to the vote at once, so as not to let Denny cool. H. O. and Noel and Alice voted with us, so Daisy and Dora were what is called a hopeless minority. We tried to cheer their hopelessness by letting them read the things out of the Golden Deed book aloud. Noel hid his face in the straw so that we should not see the faces he made while he made poetry instead of listening, and when the Wouldbegoods was by vote dissolved for ever he sat up, straws in his hair, and said—
THE EPITAPH
‘The Wouldbegoods are dead and gone
But not the golden deeds they have done
These will remain upon Glory’s page
To be an example to every age,
And by this we have got to know
How to be good upon our ow—N.
N is for Noel, that makes the rhyme and the sense both right. O, W, N, own; do you see?’
We saw it, and said so, and the gentle poet was satisfied. And the council broke up. Oswald felt that a weight had been lifted from his expanding chest, and it is curious that he never felt so inclined to be good and a model youth as he did then. As he went down the ladder out of the loft he said—
‘There’s one thing we ought to do, though, before we go home. We ought to find Albert’s uncle’s long-lost grandmother for him.’
Alice’s heart beat true and steadfast. She said, ‘That’s just exactly what Noel and I were saying this morning. Look out, Oswald, you wretch, you’re kicking chaff into my eyes.’ She was going down the ladder just under me.