So some days after the birthday Oswald offered him to exchange it for a coconut he had won at the fair, and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book.

Oswald thought, and he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange, and so did Noel at the time, and he agreed to it, and was quite pleased till the girls said it wasn't fair, and Oswald had the best of it.

And then that young beggar Noel wanted the ball back, but Oswald, though not angry, was firm.
'You said it was a bargain, and you shook hands on it,' he said, and he said it quite kindly and calmly.
Noel said he didn't care.

He wanted his cricket ball back.

And the girls said it was a horrid shame.
If they had not said that, Oswald might yet have consented to let Noel have the beastly ball, but now, of course, he was not going to.