Publisher's Synopsis
This is the story of the different ways we looked for treasure, and I think when you haveread it you will see that we were not lazy about the looking.There are some things I must tell before I begin to tell about the treasure-seeking, because I have read books myself, and I know how beastly it is when a story begins, "'Alas!"said Hildegarde with a deep sigh, "we must look our last on this ancestral home"'-andthen some one else says something-and you don't know for pages and pages where thehome is, or who Hildegarde is, or anything about it. Our ancestral home is in the LewishamRoad. It is semi-detached and has a garden, not a large one. We are the Bastables. There aresix of us besides Father. Our Mother is dead, and if you think we don't care because I don'ttell you much about her you only show that you do not understand people at all. Dora is theeldest. Then Oswald-and then Dicky. Oswald won the Latin prize at his preparatoryschool-and Dicky is good at sums. Alice and Noel are twins: they are ten, and HoraceOctavius is my youngest brother. It is one of us that tells this story-but I shall not tell youwhich: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is going on you may be trying toguess, only I bet you don't. It was Oswald who first thought of looking for treasure. Oswaldoften thinks of very interesting things. And directly he thought of it he did not keep it tohimself, as some boys would have done, but he told the others, and said-'I'll tell you what, we must go and seek for treasure: it is always what you do to restorethe fallen fortunes of your House.
