Read "The Wouldbegoods" by Edith Nesbit online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
It began one morning at breakfast. It was the fifteenth of August -- the birthday of Napoleon the Great, Oswald Bastable, and another very nice writer. Oswald was to keep his birthday on the Saturday, so that his Father could be there. A birthday when there are only many happy returns is a little like Sunday or Christmas Eve. Oswald had a birthday-card or two -- that was all; but he did not repine, because he knew they always make it up to you for putting off keeping your birthday, and he looked forward to Saturday.
Albert's uncle had a whole stack of letters as usual, and presently he tossed one over to Dora, and said, ‘What do you say, little lady? Shall we let them come?'