THE WOULDBEGOODS
would be no use for H. O. to go back and throw his straw hat at them, though he wanted to.
Denny said, suddenly:
"Couldn't we alter the sign-posts, so that they wouldn't know the way to Maidstone?"
Oswald saw that this was the time for true generalship to be shown. He said:
"Fetch all the tools out of your chest—Dicky go too, there's a good chap, and don't let him cut his legs with the saw." He did once, tumbling over it. "Meet us at the cross-roads, you know, where we had the Benevolent Bar. Courage and despatch, and look sharp about it."
When they had gone we hastened to the cross-roads, and there a great idea occurred to Oswald. He used the forces at his command so ably that in a very short time the board in the field which says "No thoroughfare. Trespassers will be prosecuted" was set up in the middle of the road to Maidstone. We put stones, from a heap by the road, behind it to make it stand up.
Then Dicky and Denny came back, and Dicky shinned up the sign-post and sawed off the two arms, and we nailed them up wrong, so that it said "To Maidstone" on the Dover Road, and "To Dover" on the road to Maidstone. We decided to leave the Trespassers board on the real Maidstone road, as an extra guard.
Then we settled to start at once to warn Maidstone.
Some of us did not want the girls to go, but it would have been unkind to say so. However,
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