other men. But the foreman, the one who had given Oswald the hinges, said:

'Better get a doctor.'[Pg 8]

[Pg 8]

It always takes a long time for a workman to understand what you want him to do, and long before these had, Oswald had shouted 'I'll go!' and was off like an arrow from a bow, and Dicky with him.

They found the doctor at home, and he came that minute. Oswald and Dicky were told to go away, but they could not bear to, though they knew their dinner-bell must have been already rung for them many times in vain, and it was now ringing with fury. They just lurked round the corner of the greenhouse till the doctor said it was a broken arm, and nothing else hurt; and when the poor man was sent home in a cab, Oswald and Dicky got the cabman, who is a friend of theirs, to let them come on the box with him. And thus they saw where the man lived, and saw his poor wife greet the sufferer. She only said:

'Gracious, Gus, whatever have you been up to now? You always was an unlucky chap.'

But we could see her loving heart was full to overflowing.

When she had taken him in and shut the door we went away. The wretched sufferer, whose name transpired to be Augustus Victor Plunkett,[Pg 9] was lucky enough to live in a mews. Noël made a poem about it afterwards:

[Pg 9]

 'O Muse of Poetry, do not refuse To tell about a man who loves the Mews. It is his humble home so poor, And the cabman who drove him home lives next door But two: and when his arm was broke His loving wife with tears spoke.' 

'O Muse of Poetry, do not refuse

To tell about a man who loves the Mews.

It is his humble home so poor,

And the cabman who drove him home lives next door

But two: and when his arm was broke

His loving wife with tears spoke.'

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