He was most awfully pleased and surprised, and when he heard how Noel and Oswald had earned the money to buy the things he was more surprised still.

Nearly all the rest of our money went to get fireworks for the Fifth of November.

We got six Catherine wheels and four rockets; two hand-lights, one red and one green; a sixpenny maroon; two Roman-candles--they cost a shilling; some Italian streamers, a fairy fountain, and a tourbillon that cost eighteen-pence and was very nearly worth it.
But I think crackers and squibs are a mistake.

It's true you get a lot of them for the money, and they are not bad fun for the first two or three dozen, but you get jolly sick of them before you've let off your sixpenn'orth.

And the only amusing way is not allowed: it is putting them in the fire.
It always seems a long time till the evening when you have got fireworks in the house, and I think as it was a rather foggy day we should have decided to let them off directly after breakfast, only Father had said he would help us to let them off at eight o'clock after he had had his dinner, and you ought never to disappoint your father if you can help it.
You see we had three good reasons for trying H.O.'s idea of restoring the fallen fortunes of our house by becoming bandits on the Fifth of November.