A Conscience Pudding - E Nesbit

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The conscience pudding by Enezbit. It was Christmas nearly a year after mother died. I cannot

write about mother but I will just say one thing. If she had only been away for a little while

and not for always, we shouldn't have been so keen on having a Christmas. I didn't understand

this then but I am much older now and I think it was just because everything was so different

and horrid we felt we must do something and perhaps we were not particular enough what.

Things make you much more unhappy when you low for about than when you were doing events.

Father had to go away just about Christmas. He had heard that his wicked partner who ran

away with his money was in France and he thought he could catch him but really he was in Spain

where catching criminals is never practiced. We did not know this till afterwards.

Before Father went away he took Dora and Oswald into his study and said,

I'm awfully sorry I've got to go away but it is very serious business and I must go. You'll be

good while I'm away kiddies won't you? We promised faithfully. Then he said, there are reasons.

You wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you but you can't have much for Christmas this year

but I've told Matilda to make you a good playing pudding. Perhaps next Christmas will be brighter.

It was for the next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews and nieces of an Indian uncle

but that is quite another story as good old Kipling says.

When Father had been seen off at Lewisham station with his bags and a plaid rag in the strap

we came home again and it was horrid. There were papers and things littered all over his room

where he had packed. We tidied the room up it was the only thing we could do for him.

It was Dickie who accidentally broke his shaving glass and H.O. made a paper boat

at Reletta we found out afterwards Father particularly wanted to keep.

This took us some time and when we went into the nursery the fire was black out and we could not

get it a light again even with a whole daily chronicle. Matilda, who was our general then,

was out as well as the fire so we went and sat in the kitchen. There is always a good fire in

kitchens. The kitchen half rug was not nice to sit on so we spread newspapers on it.

It was sitting in the kitchen I think that brought to our minds my father's parting words

about the pudding I mean. Oswald said, Father said we couldn't have much for Christmas for

secret reasons and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain pudding. The plain pudding

instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of our young minds.

I wonder how plain she'll make it, Dickie said.

As plain as plain you may depend, said Oswald.

Uh, here am I where are you pudding? That's her sort.

The others groaned and we gathered close around the fire till the newspapers rustled madly.

I believe I could make a pudding that wasn't plain if I tried, Alice said. Why shouldn't we?

No chink said Oswald with brief sadness.

How much would it cost? No will ask an added that Dora had two pints and H.O. had a French half-pony.

Dora got the cookery book out of the dresser drawer, where it lay doubled up among clothes,

pegs, dirty dusters, scallop shells, string, penny novelettes, and the dining room quarks grew.

The general we had then, it seemed as if she did all the cooking on the cookery book,

instead of on the baking board, there were traces of so many bygone meals upon its pages.

It doesn't say Christmas pudding at all, said Dora.

Try plum, the resourceful Oswald instantly counseled. Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously.

Plum pudding, 518, a rich with flour, 517, Christmas, 517, cold brandy sauce for 241.

We shouldn't care about that so it's no use looking. Good without eggs, 518, plain, 518.

We don't want that anyhow. Christmas 517, that's the one.

It took her a long time to find the page. Oswald got a shovel of coals and made up the fire.

It blazed up like the devouring elephant the daily telegraph always calls it.

Then Dora read, Christmas plum pudding, time six hours.

Two eat it in, said H.O.

No silly to make it. Forged your head Dora, Dickie replied.

Dora went on. 2072, one pound and half of raisins, half a pound of currents, three quarters of a

pound of breadcrumbs, half a pound of flour, three quarters of a pound of beef so it, nine eggs,

one wine glass full of brandy, half a pound of citron and orange peel, half a nutmeg,

and a little ground ginger. I wonder how a little ground ginger.

A teacup fall would be enough, I think, Alice said. We must not be extravagant.

We haven't got anything yet to be extravagant with, said Oswald, who had to take that day.

What would you do with the things if you got them? You'd chop the soot as fine as possible.

I wonder how fine that is, replied Dora and the book together,

and mix it with the breadcrumbs and flour, add the currents washed and dried.

Not starched, then, said Alice. The citron and orange peel cut into thin slices.

I wonder what they call thin. Matilda's thin bread and butter is quite different from what I mean by it.

And the raisins stoned and divided. How many heaps would you divide them into?

Seven, I suppose, said Alice. One for each person and one for the pot. I mean pudding.

Mix it all well together with the grated nutmeg and ginger, then stir in nine eggs,

well beaten, and the brandy. We'll leave that out, I think. And again, mix it thoroughly together

that every ingredient may be moistened. Put it into a buttered mould, tie over tightly, and boil for

six hours. Serve it ornamented with holly and brandy poured over it. I should think holly and

brandy poured over it would be simply beastly, said Dickie. I expect the book knows. I dare say

holly and water would do as well, though. This pudding may be made a month before. It's no use

reading about that, though, because we've only got four days to Christmas. It's no use reading

about any of it, said Oswald, with thoughtful repeatedness, because we haven't got the things,

and we haven't got the coin to get them. We might get the tins somehow, said Dickie.

There must be lots of kind people who would subscribe to a Christmas pudding for poor children

who hadn't any, no all said. Well, I'm going skating at pens, said Oswald. It's no use thinking

about puddings. We must put up with it plain. So he went, and Dickie went with him.

When they returned to their home in the evening, the fire had been lighted again in the nursery.

And the others were just having tea. We toasted our bread and butter on the bear's side,

and it gets a little warm among the butter. This is called a French toast.

I like English better, but it is more expensive, Alice said. Matilda is in a frightful rage about

your putting those coals on a kitchen fire, Oswald. She says we shouldn't have enough to

last over Christmas as it is, and Father gave her a talking to before he went about them.

Asked her if she ate them, she says, but I don't believe he did.

Anyway, she's locked the coal cellar door, and she's got the key in her pocket. I don't see how

we can boil the pudding. What pudding, said Oswald dreamily. He was thinking of a chap he had seen

at pens who had cut the date 1899 on the ice with four strokes. The pudding, Alice said.

Oh, we've had such a time, Oswald. First door and I went to the shops to find out exactly

what the pudding would cost. It's only two and eleven pints hate me counting in the holly.

It's no good, Oswald repeated. He is very patient and will say the same thing any number of times.

It's no good. You know we've got no tin.

Ah, said Alice. Potato and I went out, and we called that some of the houses in Granville Park

and Dartmouth Hill, and we got a lot of six pints in shillings, besides pennies,

and one old gentleman gave us half a crown. He was so nice. Quite bold, with a knitted red

and blue waistcoat. We've got eight and seven pints. Oswald did not feel quite sure

father would like us to go asking for shillings and six pints, or even half crowns from strangers,

but he did not say so. The money had been asked for and got, and it couldn't be helped.

And perhaps he wanted the pudding. I'm not able to remember exactly why he did not speak up and say,

this is wrong, but anyway he didn't. Alice and Dora went out and bought the things next morning.

They bought double quantities, so that it came to five shillings and eleven pints,

and was enough to make a noble pudding. There was a lot of holly left over for decorations.

We used very little for the sauce. The money that was left, we spent very anxiously in other things

to eat, such as dates and figs and toffee. We did not tell Matilda about it.

She was a red-haired girl and apt to turn shirty at the least thing.

Concealed under our jackets and overcoats, we carried the parcels up to the nursery,

and hid them in the treasure chest we had there. It was the bureau drawer.

It was locked up afterwards because the treacle got all over the green bays and the little

drawers inside it, while we were waiting to begin to make the pudding. It was the grosser

told us we ought to put treacle in the pudding, and also about not so much ginger as a tea-cupful.

When Matilda had begun to pretend to scrub the floor, she pretended this three times a week,

so as to have an excuse not to let us in the kitchen. But I know she used to read novelets most

of the time, because Alice and I had a squint through the window more than once. We barricaded

the nursery door and set to work. We were very careful to be quite clean. We washed our hands as

well as the currents. I have sometimes thought we did not get all the soap off the currents.

The pudding smelled like a washing day when the time came to cut it open, and we washed a corner

of the table to chop the suet on. Chopping suet looks easy to do try.

Father's machine he weighs letters with did to weigh out the things. We did this very carefully

in case the grosser had not done so. Everything was right except the raisins.

H.O. had carried them home. He was very young then, and there was a hole in the corner of the paper

bag, and his mouth was sticky. Lots of people have been hanged to a gibbet in chains on evidence

no worse than that, and we told H.O. so till he cried. This was good for him. It was not unkindness

to H.O. but part of our duty. Chopping suet as fine as possible is much harder than anyone would

think, as I said before. So is crumbling bread, especially if your loaf is new like ours was.

When we had done them, the bread crumbs and the suet were both very large and lumpy,

and of a dingy grey colour, something like pale slate pencil.

They looked a better colour when we had mixed them with the flower.

The girls had washed the currents with brown winds as soap in the sponge. Some of the currents got

inside the sponge, and kept coming out in a bath for days afterwards. I see now that this was

not quite nice. We cut the candid peel as thin as we wish people would cut our bread and butter.

We tried to take the stones out of the raisins, but they were too sticky, so we just divided them

up in seven lots. Then we mixed the other things in the wash hand basin from the spare bedroom

that was always spare. We each put in our own lot of raisins and turned it all into a pudding

basin and tied it up in one of Alice's pinnifles, which was the nearest thing to a proper pudding

cloth we could find at any rate clean. What was left sticking to the wash hand basin

did not taste so bad. It's a little bit soapy, Alice said, but perhaps that will boil out,

like stains in tablecloths. It was a difficult question how to boil the pudding.

This is Alex Cantruz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long time reporter and an

on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial

intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology,

I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it.

Asking where this is all going, they come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices,

and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast

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love or someone you love to hate. Matilda proved furious when asked to let us,

just because someone had happened to knock her hat off the scullery door and pinch her had got it

and done for it. However, part of the embassy nicked a sorspin while the others were being told

what Matilda thought about the hat and we got hot water out of the bathroom and made it boil over

our nursery fire. We put the pudding in it, it was now getting on towards the hour of tea

and let it boil. With some exceptions owing to the fire going down and Matilda not herring up

with coals, it boiled for an hour and a quarter. Then Matilda came suddenly in and said,

I'm not going to have you messing about in here with my sorspens and she tried to take it off the

fire. You will see that we couldn't stand this. It was not likely. I do not remember who it was

that told her to mind her own business and I think I have gotten who caught hold of her first to

make her chuck it. I'm sure no needless violence was used. Anyway, while the struggle progressed,

Alice and Dora took the sorspin away and put it in the boot cupboard under the stairs and put the

key in their pocket. This sharp encounter made everyone very hot and cross. We got over it before

Matilda did, but we brought her round before bedtime. Queryl should always be made up before bedtime,

it says so in the Bible. If this simple rule was followed there would not be so many wars and

martyrs and lawsuits and inquisitions and bloody deaths at the stake. All the house was still.

The gas was out all over the house except on the first landing when several darkly shrouded figures

might have been observed creeping downstairs to the kitchen. On the way with superior precaution

we got out our sorspin. The kitchen fire was red but low. The coal cell was locked and there was

nothing in the scuttle but a little cold dust and the piece of brown paper that is put in

keeps the coal from tumbling out through the bottom where the hole is. We put the sorspin on the

fire and applied it with fuel. Two chronicles, a telegraph and two family herald novelettes were

burned in vain. I'm almost sure the pudding did not boil at all that night. Nevermind, Alice said.

We can each nick a piece of coal every time we go into the kitchen tomorrow.

This daring scheme was faithfully performed and by night we had nearly half a waste paper basket

of coal, coke and cinders and in the depth of night once more we might have been observed

this time with our collier like waste paper basket in our guarded hands.

There was more fire left in the grate that night and we fed it with a fuel we had collected.

This time the fire blazed up and the pudding boiled like mad.

This was the time it boiled two hours. At least I think it was about that but we dropped a

sleep on the kitchen tables and dresser. You dare not be lowly in the night in a kitchen because of

the beetles. We were aroused by horrible smell. It was the pudding-cloth burning. All the water had

secretly boiled itself away. We filled it up at once with coal and the sorspin cracked.

So we cleaned it and put it back on the shelf and took another and went to bed.

You see what a lot of trouble we had over the pudding. Every evening till Christmas,

which had now become only the day after tomorrow, we sneaked down in the inky midnight

and boiled that pudding for as long as it would. On Christmas morning we chopped the

holly for the sors, but we put hot water instead of brandy and moist sugar.

Some of them said it was not so bad, Oswald was not one of these.

Then came the moment when the plain pudding farther had ordered, smoked upon the board.

Matilda brought it in and went away at once. She had a cousin out of Woolwich Arsenal to see her

that day, I remember. Those far off days are quite distinct in memories recollection still.

Then we got out our own pudding from its hiding place and gave it one last hurried boil,

only seven minutes because of the general impatience which Oswald and Dora could not cope with.

We had found means to secrete a dish and we now tried to dish the pudding up,

but it stuck to the basin and had to be dislodged with a chisel.

The pudding was horribly pale. We poured the holly sauce over it and Dora took up the knife

and was just cutting it, when a few simple words from H.O. turned us from happy and triumphant

cookery artists, the persons in despair. He said, how pleased all those kind ladies

and gentlemen would be if they knew we were the poor children they gave the shillings and

six princesses and things for. We all said, what? It was no moment for politeness.

I say, H.O. said. They'd be glad if they knew it was us who was enjoying the pudding and not

dirty little really poor children. You should say you were, not you was, said Dora, but it was as

in a dream and only from habit. Do you mean to say, Oswald spoke firmly, yet not angrily,

that you and Alice went and begged for money for poor children and then kept it.

We didn't keep it, said H.O. we spent it. We've kept the things, you little duffer,

said Dickie, looking at the pudding sitting alone and uncared for on its dish. You begged for

money for poor children and then kept it. It's stealing, that's what it is. I don't say so much

about you. You're only a silly kid, but Alice knew better. Why did you do it? He turned to Alice,

but she was now too deep in tears to get a word out. H.O. looked a bit frightened, but he answered

the question. We have taught him this. He said, I thought they'd give us more if I said poor

children than if I said just us. That's cheating, said Dickie. Downright beastly mean low cheating.

I'm not, said H.O. and you're another. Then he began to cry too.

I do not know how the others felt, but I understand from Oswald that he felt that now the honor

of the House of Bastable had been stamped on in the dust and it didn't matter what happened.

He looked at the beastly holly that had been left over from the source and was stuck up over

the pictures. It now appeared hollow and disgusting, though it had got quite a lot of berries,

and some of it was the varied kind greened white. The figs and dates and toffee were set out in

the doll's dinner service. The very side of it all made Oswald blush sickly. He owns he would

have liked to cuff H.O. and if he did for a moment wish to shake Alice, the author for one can

make allowances. Now Alice choked and spluttered and wiped her eyes fiercely and said,

it's no use racking H.O. it's my fault. I'm older than he is. H.O. said, it couldn't be Alice's fault.

I don't see as it was wrong. That, not as, Mermaid Dora, putting her arm around the sinner who

had brought this degrading blight upon our family tree. But such years girls undetermined an affectionate

silliness. Tells us all about it H.O. dear, why couldn't it be Alice's fault? H.O. cuddled

up to Dora and said snufflingly in his nose, because she hadn't got nothing to do with it.

I collected it all. She never went into one of the houses. She didn't want to.

And then took all the credit of getting the money, said Dickie savagely. Oswald said, not much credit

in scornful tones. Oh, you are beastly the whole lot of you, except Dora. Alice said,

stamping her foot in rage and despair. I tore my frock on a nail going out, and I didn't want to

go back, and I got H.O. to go to the houses alone, and I waited for him outside. And I asked him not

to say anything, because I didn't want Dora to know about the frock. It's my best. And I don't

know what he said inside. He never told me. But I'll bet anything he didn't mean to cheat.

You said lots of kind people would be ready to give money to get pudding for poor children,

so I asked them to. Oswald, with his strong right hand, waved a wave of passing things over.

We'll talk about that another time, he said, just now we've got waiting things to deal with.

He pointed to the pudding, which had grown cold during the conversation to which I have alluded.

H.O. stopped crying, but Alice went on with it. Oswald now said,

we're a base, an outcast family. Until that pudding's out of the house, we shouldn't be able to

look anyone in the face. We must see that that pudding goes to poor children, not grizzling,

grumpy, whiny, tiny, pretending poor children, but real poor ones, just as poor as they can stick.

And the figs too, and the dates, said Noel, with regretting tones.

Every fig, said Dickie sternly. Oswald is quite right.

This honourable resolution made us feel a bit better. We hastily put on our best things,

and washed ourselves a bit, and hurried out to find some really poor people to give the pudding to.

We cut it in slices ready, and put it in a basket with the figs and dates and toffee.

We would not let H.O. come with us at first because he wanted to, and Alice would not come because of

him, so at last we had to let him. The excitement of tearing into your best things

heals the hurt that wounded honour feels, as the poetry writer said, or at any rate it makes the hurt

feel better. We went out into the streets. They were pretty quiet, nearly everybody was eating

its Christmas dessert, but presently we met a woman in an apron. Oswald said very politely,

please, are you a poor person? And she told us to get along with us.

The next we met was a shabby man with a hole in his left boot. Again, Oswald said,

please, are you a poor person, and have you any poor little children?

The man told us not to come any of our games with him, or we should laugh on the wrong side of

our faces. We went on, sadly. We had no heart to stop and explain to him that we had no games to come.

The next was a young man in the obelisk. Dora tried this time. She said, oh, if you please,

we've got some Christmas pudding in this basket, and if you're a poor person you can have some.

poor as Job, said the young man in a horse voice, and he had to come up out for a red

comforter to say it. We gave him a slice of the pudding, and he bit into it without thanks or delay.

The next minute he had thrown the pudding slap in Dora's face, and was clutching dicky by the collar.

Blimey if I don't chuck you in the river the whole blooming lot of you, he exclaimed.

The girl screamed, the boy is shouted, and though Oswald threw himself on the insultor of his

sister with all his manly vigor, yet but for a friend of Oswald's, who was in the police,

passing at that instant, the author shudders to think what might have happened,

for he was a strong young man, and Oswald is not yet come to his full strength,

and the craggy runs all too near. Our policeman led our assailant aside,

and we waited anxiously as he told us to. After long uncertain moments,

the young man in the comforter loathed off grumbling, and our policeman turned to us,

said you give him a doll of pudding and a toasted of soap and hair oil.

I suppose the hair oil must have been the brown winteriness of the soap coming out.

We were sorry, but it was still our duty to get rid of the pudding.

The craggy was handy, it is true, but when you have collected money to feed poor children,

and spent it on pudding, it is not right to throw that pudding in the river.

People did not subscribe shillings and sixpences and half-crowns to feed a hungry flood with

Christmas pudding. Yet we shrank from asking any more people whether they were poor persons,

or about their families, and still more from offering the pudding to chance people

who might bite into it and taste the soap before we had time to get away.

It was Alice, the most paralyzed with disgrace of all of us, who thought of the best idea.

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Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long-time reporter and an

on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial

intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology,

I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it,

asking where this is all going, to come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more.

So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices,

and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast

wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Alicia, and I'm Stacey, and we make Trashy Divorces.

Everybody's favorite good podcast about bad relationships. Looking for something true

crimey without the gore or the body count? We've been shurning out funny, feisty, feminist

episodes since 2019. So if you're looking to put some scandalous stories,

told well into your ears this summer, check out Trashy Divorces. Wherever you listen to podcasts,

trust us we've covered someone you love, or someone you love to hate.

She said, let's take it to the workhouse, at any rate they're all poor there,

and they may not go out without leave, so they can't run after us to do anything to us after

the pudding. No one would give them leave to go out to pursue people who have brought them pudding

and wreck vengeance on them, and at any rate we should get rid of the conscience pudding.

It's sort of conscience money you know, only it isn't money but pudding.

The workhouse is a good way, but we stuck to it, though very cold, and hungrier than we thought

possible when we started, for we had been so agitated, we had not even stayed to eat the

plain pudding our good father had so kindly and thoughtfully ordered for our Christmas dinner.

The big bell at the workhouse made a man open the door to us when we rang it.

Oswald said, and he spoke, because he is next eldest to Dora, and she had had jolly well

enough of saying anything about pudding. He said, please, we've brought some pudding for the poor

people. He looked us up and down, and he looked at our basket, then he said, you'd better see the

matron. We waited in a hall, feeling more and more uncomfy and less and less like Christmas.

We were very cold indeed, especially our hands and our noses, and we felt less and less able to

face the matron if she was horrid, and one of us at least wished we had chosen the

crikey for the pudding's long home, and made it up to the robbed poor in some other way afterwards.

Just as Alice was saying earnestly, in the burning cold ear of Oswald,

let's put down the basket and make a bolt for it, oh Oswald, let's!

A lady came along the passage. She was very upright, and she had eyes that went through you like

blue gimmlets. I should not like to be obliged to thought that lady if she had any design and

mine was opposite. I'm glad this is not likely to occur. She said, what's all this about a pudding?

H.O. said it once, before we could stop him. They say I've stolen the pudding, so we brought

a hair for the poor people. No, he didn't. That wasn't why. The money was given. It was meant for

the poor, shut our page-show, so the rest of us all at once. Then there was an awful silence.

The lady gimmleted us again one by one with her blue eyes. Then she said, come into my room,

you all look frozen! She took us into a very jolly room with velvet curtains and a big fire,

and the gas lighted, because now it was almost dark, even out of doors. She gave us chairs,

and Oswald felt as if his was a dock. He felt so criminal, and the lady looked so judgeful.

Then she took the armchair by the fire herself, and said, who's the eldest?

I am, said Dora, looking more like a frightened white rabbit than I've ever seen her.

Then tell me all about it! Dora looked at Alice, and began to cry. That slab of pudding in the face

had totally unnerved the gentle girl. Alice's eyes were red, and her face was puffy with crying,

but she spoke up for Dora, and said, or please let Oswald tell, Dora can't! She's tired

with the long walk, and a young man threw a piece of it in her face and the lady nodded,

and Oswald began. He told the story from the very beginning, as he has always been taught to,

though he hated to lay bare the family on as wound before a stranger,

however judge-like and gimlet-eyed. He told all, not concealing the pudding throwing,

nor what the young man had said about soap. So, he ended, we want to give the conscience putting

to you. It's like conscience money, you know what that is, don't you? But if you really think

it is soapy, and not just the young man's horridness, perhaps you'd better not let them eat it,

but the figs and things were all right. When he had done, the lady said, for most of us were crying,

more or less. Come, cheer up! It's Christmas time, and he's very little, your brother, I mean,

and I think the rest of you seem pretty well able to take care of the honour of the family.

I'll take the conscience putting off your minds. Where are you going now?

Home, I suppose, Oswald said, and he thought how nasty and dark and dull it would be,

the fire out most likely, and farther away.

And your father's not at home, you say. The blue-gimlit lady went on.

What do you say to having tea with me, and then seeing the entertainment we have got up for our old

people? Then the lady smiled, and the blue-gimlets looked quite merry. The room was so warm and

comfortable, and the invitation was the last thing we expected. It was jolly of her, I do think.

No one thought quite at first of saying how pleased we should be to accept her kind invitation.

Instead we all just said, oh, but in a tone which must have told her we meant, yes please,

very deeply. Oswald, this is more than once happened, was the first to restore his manners.

He made a proper bow like he has been taught, and said, thank you very much, we should like

it very much, it is very much nicer than going home, thank you very much.

I need not tell the reader that Oswald could have made up a much better speech if he had had more

time to make it up in, or if he had not been so filled with mixed flusteredness and purification

by the shameful events of the day. We washed our faces and hands, and had a first-rate muffin

and crumpet tea with slices of cold meats and many nice jams and cakes. A lot of other people were

there, most of them people who were giving the entertainment to the aged poor.

After tea it was the entertainment, songs, and conjuring, and a play called Box and Cox,

for him using, and a lot of throwing things about in it, bacon and chops and things,

and nigger minstrels. We clapped till our hands were sore. When it was over we said goodbye.

In between the songs and things, Oswald had had time to make up a speech of thanks to the lady.

He said, We all thank you heartily for your goodness. The entertainment was beautiful.

We shall never forget your kindness and hospitableness.

The lady laughed and said she had been very pleased to have us. A fat gentleman said,

And your teas, I hope you enjoyed those, eh? Oswald had not had time to make up an answer to that,

so he answered straight from the heart and said, Rather, and everyone laughed and slapped us

boys on the back and kissed the girls, and the gentleman who played the bones in the nigger minstrel

saw us home. We ate the cold pudding that night, and H.O. dreamed that something came to eat him,

like it advises you to in the advertisements on hoardings. The grown-up said it was the pudding,

but I don't think it could have been that, because as I have said more than once, it was so very plain.

Some of H.O.'s brothers and sisters thought it was a judgment on him for pretending about who the

poor children were he was collecting the money for. Oswald's not believed such a little boy as H.O.

would have a real judgment made just for him and nobody else, whatever he did.

But it certainly is odd. H.O. was the only one who had bad dreams, and he was also the only one

who got any of the things we bought with that ill-gotten money, because you remember he picked a

hole in the raisin paper as he was bringing the parcel home. The rest of us had nothing,

unless you count the scrapings of the pudding basin, and those don't really count at all.

End of the Conscience Pudding by E.Nespit

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