ber exactly who said it. Oswald thinks he said it, and Dora says it was Dicky, but Oswald is too much of a man to quarrel about a little thing like that.
"I should like to be a detective," said—perhaps it was Dicky, but I think not—"and find out strange and hidden crimes."
"You have to be much cleverer than you are," said H. O.
"Not so very," Alice said, "because when you've read the books you know what the things mean: the red hair on the handle of the knife, or the grains of white powder on the velvet collar of the villain's overcoat. I believe we could do it."
"I shouldn't like to have anything to do with murders," said Dora; "somehow it doesn't seem safe——"
"And it always ends in the poor murderer being hanged," said Alice.
We explained to her why murderers have to be hanged, but she only said, "I don't care. I'm sure no one would ever do murdering twice. Think of the blood and things, and what you would see when you woke up in the night! I shouldn't mind being a detective to lie in wait for a gang of coiners, now, and spring upon them unawares, and secure them
