The Story of the Treasure Seekers | Page 8

Albert-next-door
was underneath, stuck quite fast, because the roof of the tunnel had
tumbled in on him. He is a horribly unlucky boy to have anything to do
with.
It was dreadful the way he cried and screamed, though he had to own it
didn't hurt, only it was rather heavy and he couldn't move his legs. We
would have dug him out all right enough, in time, but he screamed so
we were afraid the police would come, so Dicky climbed over the wall,
to tell the cook there to tell Albert-next-door's uncle he had been buried
by mistake, and to come and help dig him out.
Dicky was a long time gone. We wondered what had become of him,
and all the while the screaming went on and on, for we had taken the
loose earth off Albert's face so that he could scream quite easily and
comfortably.
Presently Dicky came back and Albert-next-door's uncle came with
him. He has very long legs, and his hair is light and his face is brown.
He has been to sea, but now he writes books. I like him.
He told his nephew to stow it, so Albert did, and then he asked him if
he was hurt--and Albert had to say he wasn't, for though he is a coward,
and very unlucky, he is not a liar like some boys are.
'This promises to be a protracted if agreeable task,' said
Albert-next-door's uncle, rubbing his hands and looking at the hole

with Albert's head in it. 'I will get another spade,' so he fetched the big
spade out of the next-door garden tool-shed, and began to dig his
nephew out.
'Mind you keep very still,' he said, 'or I might chunk a bit out of you
with the spade.' Then after a while he said--
'I confess that I am not absolutely insensible to the dramatic interest of
the situation. My curiosity is excited. I own that I should like to know
how my nephew happened to be buried. But don't tell me if you'd rather
not. I suppose no force was used?'
'Only moral force,' said Alice. They used to talk a lot about moral force
at the High School where she went, and in case you don't know what it
means I'll tell you that it is making people do what they don't want to,
just by slanging them, or laughing at them, or promising them things if
they're good.
'Only moral force, eh?' said Albert-next-door's uncle. 'Well?'
'Well,' Dora said, 'I'm very sorry it happened to Albert--I'd rather it had
been one of us. It would have been my turn to go into the tunnel, only I
don't like worms, so they let me off. You see we were digging for
treasure.'
'Yes,' said Alice, 'and I think we were just coming to the underground
passage that leads to the secret hoard, when the tunnel fell in on Albert.
He IS so unlucky,' and she sighed.
Then Albert-next-door began to scream again, and his uncle wiped his
face--his own face, not Albert's--with his silk handkerchief, and then he
put it in his trousers pocket. It seems a strange place to put a
handkerchief, but he had his coat and waistcoat off and I suppose he
wanted the handkerchief handy. Digging is warm work.
He told Albert-next-door to drop it, or he wouldn't proceed further in
the matter, so Albert stopped screaming, and presently his uncle
finished digging him out. Albert did look so funny, with his hair all

dusty and his velvet suit covered with mould and his face muddy with
earth and crying.
We all said how sorry we were, but he wouldn't say a word back to us.
He was most awfully sick to think he'd been the one buried, when it
might just as well have been one of us. I felt myself that it was hard
lines.
'So you were digging for treasure,' said Albert-next-door's uncle,
wiping his face again with his handkerchief. 'Well, I fear that your
chances of success are small. I have made a careful study of the whole
subject. What I don't know about buried treasure is not worth knowing.
And I never knew more than one coin buried in any one garden--and
that is generally--Hullo--what's that?'
He pointed to something shining in the hole he had just dragged Albert
out of. Oswald picked it up. It was a half-crown. We looked at each
other, speechless with surprise and delight, like in books.
'Well, that's lucky, at all events,' said Albert-next-door's uncle.
'Let's see, that's fivepence each for you.'
'It's fourpence--something; I can't do fractions,' said Dicky; 'there are
seven of us, you see.'
'Oh, you count Albert as one of yourselves on this occasion, eh?'
'Of course,' said Alice; 'and