Noel said he didn’t care. He wanted his cricket ball back. And the girls said it was a horrid shame.
If they had not said that, Oswald might yet have consented to let Noel have the beastly ball, but now, of course, he was not going to. He said—
‘Oh, yes, I daresay. And then you would be wanting the coconut and things again the next minute.’
‘No, I shouldn’t,’ Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H. O. had eaten the coconut, which only made it worse. And it made them worse too—which is what the book calls poetic justice.
Dora said, ‘I don’t think it was fair,’ and even Alice said—
‘Do let him have it back, Oswald.’
I wish to be just to Alice. She did not know then about the coconut having been secretly wolfed up.
We were in the garden. Oswald felt all the feelings of the hero when the opposing forces gathered about him are opposing as hard as ever they can. He knew he was not unfair, and he did not like to be jawed at just because Noel had eaten the coconut and wanted the ball back. Though Oswald did not know then about the eating of the coconut, but he felt the injustice in his soul all the same.
Noel said afterwards he meant to offer Oswald something else to make up for the coconut, but he said nothing about this at the time.
‘Give it me, I say,’ Noel said.