OSWALD BASTABLE AND OTHERS By E. NESBIT Illustrated by CHARLES E. BROCK AND H. R. MILLAR ERNEST BENN LIMITED LONDON COWARD-McCANN INC NEW YORK First re-issued in this edition 1960 Published by Ernest Benn Limited Bouverie House · Fleet Street · London · EC4 and Coward-McCann Inc 210 Madison Avenue · New York 16 · NY Printed in Great Britain '"Don't break down the door! The villains may return any moment and destroy you."'—Page 115. TO MY DEAR NIECE ANTHONIA NESBIT CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS [Pg 1] [Pg 1] AN OBJECT OF VALUE AND VIRTUE This happened a very little time after we left our humble home in Lewisham, and went to live at the Blackheath house of our Indian uncle, which was replete with every modern convenience, and had a big garden and a great many greenhouses. We had had a lot of jolly Christmas presents, and one of them was Dicky's from father, and it was a printing-press. Not one of the eighteenpenny kind that never come off, but a real tip-topper, that you could have printed a whole newspaper out of if you could have been clever enough to make up all the stuff there is in newspapers. I don't know how people can do it. It's all about different things, but it is all just the same too. But the author is sorry to