The Tale of Lal

by Raymond Paton

  CHAPTER VI

  TWO DICK WHITTINGTONS

  The streets of London were alive with an unwonted gaiety, and crowds ofpeople waited patiently, and with an air of expectancy, to see the LordMayor of London pass in state on his way from the Mansion House to theHome for Children which he had built--about to be opened that day byhis Majesty the King.

  Ridgwell and Christine sat in the broad, chintz-covered window-seat ofthe Writer's chambers overlooking Trafalgar Square, and viewed thegreat crowds of people beneath them with astonishment and interest.

  "When the Lord Mayor passes my window," said the Writer, "he haspromised to look out as far as his dignity will permit and nod to me.That he also intends to nod to our old friend Lal is a foregoneconclusion, for without that recognition upon his part I am sure theday's ceremony would be incomplete."

  "Will it be like a circus?" inquired Ridgwell.

  "Yes, rather like a circus," admitted the Writer. "That is to say, avery great deal of gilt and highly coloured horses, soldiers, andinevitably one brass band playing, probably more than one."

  "We can see Lal perfectly from here," said Christine.

  "What is that large wreath for, placed between Lal's paws?" askedRidgwell.

  "That," declared the Writer, "was placed there early this morning bythe Lord Mayor himself. He ordered it from Covent Garden, and he hadgreat difficulty in procuring it even there. The wreath is entirelycomposed of water-lilies, Lal's favourite flower, and is put there inhonour of the occasion. Of course this is undoubtedly one of the greatdays in the Lord Mayor's life, and he looks upon it as one of thecrowning features in his whole career."

  A sudden increased agitation among the crowd, a rumble as of cheeringin the distance, and the first sound of trumpets and drums announcedthat the procession was drawing near.

  The first sign of the vanguard were some mounted policemen who rodeahead to clear the way. There appeared to be little need for thisprecaution, as the crowds were standing in most orderly rows along thepavements.

  "I'm sure Lal doesn't like those policemen," said Ridgwell decisively.

  "No," agreed the Writer, "he sees such a lot of them where he is and,of course, he detests crowds of any sort, they jostle and bump hispedestal so much that it makes him feel uncomfortable. Here come themounted soldiers; they look very smart, don't they? And here is theband, blowing their trumpets for all they are worth; some of themalmost look as if they would burst with the effort."

  "Is that first carriage the Lord Mayor's?" inquired Christine.

  "No, the first carriages are all the other Aldermen."

  "Six carriages full," said Christine. "And look at those men in redand gold standing up behind the last coaches."

  "Yes," said Ridgwell, "strap-hangers. I wonder how they keep theirbalance and keep all that powder on their heads."

  "I fancy," said the Writer, "they have to practise it; and as for thepowder, I expect it is a secret preparation known only to themselves."

  A burst of renewed cheering greeted the appearance of six cream horses,richly caparisoned with red and gold trappings, urged on by outriders.

  "Here is the Lord Mayor," exclaimed the Writer excitedly, as heproduced a large red silk handkerchief and waved it wildly out of thewindow.

  There could be no doubt whatever that a fat old gentleman with redcheeks and a white moustache, whose portly form was covered with ascarlet and fur gown, around which hung a lot of glittering goldenchains, and who had one side of the state coach all to himself, saw theWriter's greeting and returned it. The children saw him look up at thewindow and deliberately bow, then he turned his head in the directionof Lal, the Pleasant-Faced Lion, and bowed and smiled.

  "Quite gorgeous," observed Ridgwell when the procession had passed,"but I always thought from what you told us that Alderman Gold was talland thin."

  "Ah," said the Writer, "that was at the beginning of the story, and hewas a Miser then, and most misers are thin; but as he grew more andmore cheerful, more and more happy, he grew a bit fatter and a bitfatter still, and then he got colour in his cheeks, until he became thejolly, agreeable, fat, old, good-natured gentleman you have seen justnow in the distance. However, you will be able to see him at closerquarters and make his jolly acquaintance for yourselves presently, forhe will call here and see me after all the ceremony is over."

  "Will he be in time for tea?" inquired Christine.

  "No, much too late for tea, Christine, but there will be a welcome forhim, which I know he is looking forward to, and something I think hewill like better than the big City banquet he has presided at, and itwill be waiting for him here--a good cigar and a drink," and the Writerindicated a very handsome piece of old oak furniture at the end of thelong room, which contained mysterious little cupboards which opened inodd angles and unexpected curves.

  "I do hope he will turn up in his robes," ventured Ridgwell. "I ratherwant to see what they are like."

  "We must wait and see about that, and as it must be some considerabletime before tea, and a longer time still before His Worshipful theMayor can possibly be here, I propose to finish the rest of the story Itold you, right up to the present time. Of course, Lal may give thesign he promised to-night, or he may not; if he does you will both behere to see it."

  Thereupon Ridgwell and Christine curled themselves up upon the broadwindow seat, and prepared to listen.

  The Writer closed the window, and they all noticed that the crowdsbeneath were rapidly dispersing; occasionally some one would stop for asecond and look at the big wreath of water-lilies between the Lion'spaws, but the majority of people passing appeared not to have noticedit at all.

  "Where did I get to in the story?" asked the Writer.

  "Lal had said his last word to you," volunteered Ridgwell; "and what Iparticularly want to know is this: how did that second mysteriouspromise about Dick Whittington come true eventually, and did you evermeet Dick Whittington as Lal declared that you would, and did he reallybring you fame and fortune when you met him?"

  The Writer smiled. "Yes, indeed I met him, but not in any way orfashion that I should ever have expected. Of course both of youchildren know Lal well enough by this time to realise that he loves alittle joke of his own at our expense, and many of his mysteriouspromises, although they come true in a way, turn out to be utterly andcompletely different from what he would seem to suggest to us by hiswords; in fact, Lal is like a great happy conjuror or wizard who dearlyloves to mystify us with a trick. I am convinced he enjoys ouramazement at any of his pet tricks, as much as he enjoys the laugh hehas at our expense."

  "That's right," said Ridgwell; "he tricked Chris and me finely once. Ihaven't forgiven him so very long for it, and it made me feel veryuncomfortable for a good while."

  "Everybody forgives Lal in the end," laughed the Writer; "one simplycannot help oneself, but really his pranks are too absurd, and yet whenI found out how I had been tricked, I couldn't be cross with him, for Iactually loved his funny old ways more than before, if such a thingwere possible. To continue my story where I left off, Alderman Goldseemed in some miraculous way to have had much more than his sightrestored to him that night. The first thing he did was to lift thebody of poor Sam very gently, and as we left the Square he called acab, and whilst we drove to his big mansion in Lancaster Gate, he askedme to tell him everything I could remember about my short life up tothat time. Of course, I did so in my own peculiar fashion; theverbiage of the street and the gutter must have been freely sprinkledabout during that narrative. Sometimes he looked thoughtful, and atother times he lay back in the cab and laughed out loud. When wearrived at his big house, which seemed to me at that time to be amighty great mansion, he first made his way into a very big garden atthe back where there were a lot of trees, and opening a gardening shed,he got a spade and dug a grave for Sam deep down under the trees, andit is there with his name, which was afterwards carved on a piece ofwood, until this day.

  "Whilst my childish tears were still flo
wing as the result of this sadceremony, a lady came down the garden path in the moonlight, and as shejoined us I noticed that although she appeared a little startled, shehad a most beautiful face.

  "'I didn't know it was you, sir, I couldn't think who could be diggingin the garden at this time of night, and I grew frightened.'

  "'Mrs. Durham,' said the Alderman earnestly, 'I was digging a grave forthe dead pet of this small piece of humanity here, who will henceforthbe one of your special charges.'

  "Mrs. Durham glanced at the Alderman rather in amazement, I thought, asif he had suddenly taken leave of his senses, but she looked at me asshe has ever done in a most kindly way.

  "'Skylark,' said the Alderman, 'this is Mrs. Durham, my housekeeper.'Perhaps the Alderman had seen the expression upon Mrs. Durham's face,and had interpreted it correctly, for he added, 'Mrs. Durham, I amsomewhat ashamed to say that in the grave of a faithful and mostdevoted creature I have here buried metaphorically, for good and all,as many of the reprehensible habits of my old life as I can cast atonce, therefore, if I seem to you to be very different in the future,you may know there is a good reason for my being so. Could youconveniently take this infant and get him something substantial to eatand drink, and see he is put to bed?'

  "Mrs. Durham said, 'Very well, sir,' and taking my hand led me into thehouse; but she still looked amazed, as if she had seen a ghost, Ithought.

  "A good many other people, I fancy, must have looked amazed the nextday, when in the Alderman's big City offices all the clerks found thattheir salaries were to be raised. I rather imagine the office boy wasthe most astonished of all, for upon discovering that his master hadraised his weekly remuneration to a pound a week, he was heard toexclaim, 'Well, that knocks all, that is if the Governor hasn't gotsoftening of the brain!'

  "The Alderman didn't stop there by a long way, for I know that all theservants in his house commenced to have a different time of it, and histhoughtfulness, as far as I was concerned, was more than wonderful.

  "I remember a few days after my arrival he called a council of war withMrs. Durham, at which I was present, and I may say in passing, thatMrs. Durham and I were by this time fast friends.

  "'There is one thing that must be done at once, Mrs. Durham,' Iremember him saying during that important interview; 'the youngstermust go at once to school. Now the difficulty is this: I don't wanthim to start at a disadvantage from the very beginning, and speaking ashe does now, no ordinary school would take him.'

  "'I'm afraid not, sir,' debated Mrs. Durham.

  "'Very well, then,' said the Alderman, 'at present there is only onething to do; we must have somebody here to teach him English, anyway tospeak properly and to write and spell before he goes to a school. Itmust be done, but I think myself it is going to take time,' concludedthe Alderman. Then he put on his hat and started for the City.

  "I am not going to dwell upon this youthful period of my life, foreverybody's school-days very much resemble every other person's, but Ido know that the Alderman's belief that my education would take timeproved to be only too true. I shall never forget how long andpainfully I worked and toiled to speak my verbs in their proper tenses,to stop dropping my aitches, how I longed to drop the Cockney slang,how my life became possessed with a sort of terror that I should comeout with some expression that would cause concern to either mybenefactor or to Mrs. Durham.

  "Well, I strove, and at last I succeeded so well that I was sent to afine school where I received a first-class education, and the onlyeffect of the great struggles I went through at this time was a sort ofnervousness which I shall have all through my life, and which results,no doubt, from intense anxiety all those years not to make mistakes.

  "And so I skip along until one night after the school had broken up atthe end of a winter term. I remember it all so well. I had taken thebest prizes in the fifth form, I was barely fifteen, and I rushed home,tore into the library, and emptied all those beautifully bound booksinto my benefactor's lap. He had been smoking his cigar, and wasdozing in front of the fire.

  "'What do you think of that, Dad?' I yelled. I always called him Dadas a sort of distinction, for although he wasn't my father really, hehad been a ripping father to me.

  "'Bless my heart, my boy,' he said, 'have you taken all these prizes?Why, I'm proud of you.'

  "'And I proud of you,' I said; then I laughed at him. 'You've tried tokeep a secret from me, Dad,' I cried, 'and you haven't succeeded a bit.Where's Mum?'

  "'Now how on earth did you know that, miles away at school, too?'laughed the Alderman.

  "'Read it in the papers days ago. Where is she, Dad? I want to giveher a good hug.'

  "'I'm here, dear boy,' said a voice just over my shoulder, a voice Iknew so well, that had helped me more in my childish hours than I couldever count, a voice that was perhaps the one that had taught me tospeak correctly in those trying early days. She wasn't Mrs. Durham anylonger, she was Mrs. Gold, but she hadn't altered one bit, and she wasMum then, as she has always been since.

  "It wouldn't be honest to skip the next part of the story, and yet Ialways want to omit this part somehow, because it is entirely composedof events brought about by my own selfishness, obstinacy andpig-headedness, although as a young man I never realised the greatgrief and the real trouble I was causing to people who had always lovedme and done everything for me.

  "It started after the time I had left the University of Oxford. I hadjust commenced to feel my wings, so to speak. Everything there hadhelped to increase and nourish my love of literature, the set I mixedwith had placed me on a sort of pedestal which I in no way deserved,everybody seemed to expect a lot from me, every one seemed to believe Iwould do great and wonderful things, and what was more disastrousstill, I believed I should do wonderful things myself. Imbued withthese beliefs, I went home after my last year at Oxford, determined tobe a great writer, mark you, not an ordinary writer, since I waspositively assured of the fact that I had only to make an appearance inprint to be instantly proclaimed one of the immortals. Whilst I was inthis ridiculous frame of mind, Dad unfolded to me the cherished schemeof his life. It was that I should go into his office and learn thebusiness, and one day become the head of the firm.

  "I think my blank face must have told them the utter hopelessness ofthe scheme, even before I had explained to them all my hopes andbeliefs as to what I intended to be. One of the things I regret mostin my life was the grief I saw only too plainly upon the old Dad'sface. He had been brought up a business man all his life, he didn'tbelieve in Literature as a living. He never argued, he didn't storm,hardly said anything, except begging me in an appealing sort of way toreconsider my decision. But I saw at once that I had dealt adeath-blow to all his hopes, and, like the selfish young brute I was, Ididn't care so long as I got my own way.

  "I must have been utterly mad at the time, or intoxicated with my ownbelief in myself, for I even went further, and said I was going awaywithout any further help of any sort, and that I would make a name, andnot come back until I had done so. I refused all assistance; I onlywanted their good-will and belief in me, and this I knew neither ofthem could honestly give me. The Dad implored me to let him assist me;they both begged me to live at home until I could rely upon myself,feel my own feet, or lastly, the most fatal sentence they could haveuttered in my state of pride, to remain at home until I realised the_failure_ I was about to make and alter my mind.

  "What a hopeless and silly thing is pride. It must be a dangerousthing, too, if it can suddenly choke years of love and devotion.

  "Pride was uppermost then when I left the house where we had all beenso happy, and went out into the world, and I told them both I wouldonly return when I had made myself famous, and not before. I believethey both broke down when I left, but I was a selfish young brute, andI never saw their view of things, nor how bitterly it must have hurtthem. Retribution was not long in coming; I found as time went on thatthere were dozens of men, and women too, who could write better than Icou
ld. I found a living was not easy to get. I went even furtherstill, and found at last that it was impossible to get any living atall. Education--there were hundreds of men, highly educated men, too,without any means of earning a living. Inspiration--and I had pratedabout inspiration often enough; inspiration only became inspirationwhen it was recognised as such. Luck, chance--I found there were nosuch things, save as words. Money--I never made any now, and graduallyI went down and down, grew shabby, was passed hurriedly by friends ofmy own choosing; then followed shabby rooms and little food, only togive place in turn to an attic and no food at all. Pride must havebeen still at work with a vengeance, for whatever I suffered there wasnot a single day or night that I could not have rushed home and beenwelcomed like the Prodigal of old, and been rejoiced over. But thevery idea of this gave me a chill feeling of horror. How could I gohome with all my boasts unfulfilled? Was I to creep home aself-confessed failure, with the alternative of acknowledging it andmending my ways and becoming the head of a business firm with a heartembittered for life? I felt I would never do this. I would prefer tostarve upon the Embankment, and when I made that resolution I knew onlytoo well what I was in for. I had done the same thing in my earlierlife, only it needed a far greater courage to face that life now thanit required then. Things were at their very worst when one day, as Iwas wending my way through the poverty-stricken locality in which Ilived, I was hailed by my name. The man was shabbily dressed, butabout my own age as far as I could gather, yet I never rememberedhaving met him before.

  "'You don't remember me?' he asked.

  "'No,' I replied.

  "'Humph!' he rejoined, 'and yet at school you had quite a slap-up fightupon my behalf, which ought to have been a lesson to snobs in general,simply because I insisted upon talking to my own father when he wasdriving one of his own furniture vans.'

  "'Murkel Minor,' I murmured. 'Jove, yes, I remember.'

  "'Well, I'm a dealer now, got a place of my own, first-class antiques,you know, doing rather well, too.'

  "I nodded.

  "'But, I say, how about yourself? you don't look up to much. What areyou doing? You know all the swell chaps at school, who always lookeddown on me, used to think you would do no end of things.'

  "Somehow or other a sudden feeling of utter frankness came over me. 'Iam not doing anything,' I said. 'I've never done anything, and I don'tbelieve now I ever shall do anything.'

  "'What are you supposed to do?' asked Murkel, and he asked it in rathera nice way.

  "'Writing,' I said.

  "'Books?'

  "'Yes, and stories, and any blessed thing that comes along; that is tosay, when it _does_ come along.'

  "Murkel mused for awhile as we walked along, and to this day I do notknow whether he considered he was paying off an old debt, or whether hereally required my services. Anyway he told me he wanted a descriptivecatalogue written of some of his best antiques, their historyguaranteed and authenticated, and that he would pay me a fair sum forwriting it.

  "I left my one-time schoolfellow Murkel Minor, with the certainty ofwork for which I should be paid, and with something like a ray of hope,and oddly enough I did not lament over the strange fortune which hadprevented any one from accepting any of my books or poems, but hadgiven me instead the writing of a catalogue of bric-a-brac. There wasone thing I often resented in my own mind, and frequently sneered atmost bitterly whenever I remembered it; that was the fact that Lal hadprophesied that I should become great, and also that I should meet DickWhittington. Both these imaginary things I regarded now as beingutterly unreliable, and looked upon as two ghostly myths of the past.I might have known better. The nervousness from which I suffered, andwhich I have already alluded to, was becoming so marked that it greatlystood in my way, particularly whenever I had any writing to do. Iwould fidget, bite my fingers, nibble the pen, break the nibs, athousand things sooner than deliberately sit down to write.Concentration seemed at times to me wholly impossible. One day, aftersacrificing many nibs, and breaking my only ink-bottle, I settled downsufficiently to finish Murkel's catalogue, and received the sum of fivepounds for the work. It seemed untold riches to me at the time. As Iwent homeward through the maze of dirty streets towards where my garretwas situated, I had to pass through one where the outside pavementstalls were always heaped up upon either side of the way with everyimaginable thing from greengrocery and scrap-iron to old prints andchina-ware.

  "Upon one of these stalls an inkstand immediately attracted myattention, partly from the fact that I had broken my own ink-bottle,and had resolved to buy another, but more particularly because thisinkstand appeared to me to be one of the most uncommon receptacles forink I had ever seen. It was made in what I judged must be some oldform of china-ware I never remembered to have seen before, and beneaththe dirt which was thickly coated over it I could see that both themodelling and colouring of it were very beautiful. It represented afigure lying upon the ground beside a big tree-stump, which, after themud should be scraped out of it, was evidently intended to contain ink,and a milestone, when a similar operation had taken place, woulddoubtless contain one pen; a coloured three-cornered hat flung besidethe figure upon the ground was obviously designed to hold a taper.

  "The inkstand attracted me strangely, and I was so fascinated with itthat I could not take my eyes off it. The woman to whom the stallbelonged, doubtless spotting a likely customer, asked me how much Iwould give her for it. I deliberated for some time, as I had not theremotest idea what its value might be in her eyes, so I offered hereighteenpence as a sort of compromise between the inkstand and otherarticles ticketed upon her stall.

  "'Give us two bob, and it's yours,' suggested the stall woman.However, I was firm, and was upon the point of going away when shecalled me back, and thrust it into my hand, carefully holding on to oneof the square corners of it until she saw the money safely deposited.

  "It took me some time to clean it properly when I got it home, but Imust say it fully rewarded all the efforts I made to wash it, andsomehow the more I looked at it the more beautiful I thought it was.

  "There was something about that contemplative figure lying upon thegrass that gave me confidence and reassurance, and I found myselfregarding it as an old friend and talking to it, and when the bigtree-stump was filled with ink I used to sit and write from it forhours. There always seemed to be encouragement and inquiry in thelaughing face that looked from the figure on the inkstand, as if itwere saying, 'Well, what are you going to write now, and when are yougoing to finish it?' I began to imagine that it gave me inspirationwhenever I wrote; whether that was so or not, it certainly answeredmuch better than its predecessor, the dull old ink-bottle that had beenbroken.

  "So day by day I worked hard, and somehow became convinced that thewonderful little inkstand helped and inspired me in some curious mannerwhich I could in no way account for, and after a few months I finishedmy book, eking out a scanty existence with other odd literary jobs. Itwas about this time that Murkel called on me.

  "He stumbled up the winding stairs to my garret one day, smoking aquite objectionable pipe, and declared that I was the only oldschoolfellow he had ever cared to call upon, as all the rest weresnobs, and wound up by stating that we probably got along so welltogether as he came from the people, and he was certain that I camefrom the people also, and only those people who came from the peoplethemselves ever got there eventually.

  "After I had listened patiently to this harangue he came to the pointby declaring he was a great friend of a publisher who sometimes boughtthe Murkel curios, furniture, china, pictures, etc., and if I liked hewould get him to read my new book.

  "I was only too thankful to accept this offer, and was saying so when acurious thing happened. Murkel, whose eyes had been roaming around myone attic room with the curious instinct of the dealer, and findingnothing that in any way interested him, suddenly crossed over to myrickety writing-table, and pouncing upon my inkstand emitted a low andprolonged whistle which might h
ave been emblematical of eitherastonishment or delight.

  "'Don't drop that inkstand,' I said. 'I'm very fond of that.'

  "'Drop it!' almost shouted Murkel, 'drop it! Great Scott, do you know_what_ it is?'

  "'Yes,' I said, 'of course, it's an ink-stand.'

  "Murkel looked at me almost pityingly. 'Oh, my great aunt,' he said,'the ways of writers are beyond understanding. Here's one who lives ina garret, probably hasn't enough to eat, and upon a ricketythree-legged writing-table, which would be a disgrace to a fifth-ratecoffee-house, he has a jewel worth a hundred guineas and more.'

  "'Bosh! you're joking,' I retorted.

  "Murkel gave a queer smile. 'Am I?' he said. 'Well, I am prepared togo back to my place and write you a cheque for a hundred guineas forthis, now on the spot.'

  "I suppose I still continued to stare at him stupidly, and most likelythe signs of my utter disbelief were plainly to be seen in mycountenance, for Murkel continued hurriedly--

  "'It's my business, I never make a mistake. This inkstand is Old Bowchina, date--early Queen Anne. My friend, there are not five of theseleft in the world to-day, there are not four, and this is probably themost perfect one in existence; and what makes it so valuable, apartfrom its glaze, is that it was done by a fine artist, and it is afamous legendary figure perfectly executed. In fact, it is none otherthan the famous Dick Whittington.'

  "'What!' It was my turn to shout this time. 'Dick Whittington!' Icried.

  "'Of course,' said Murkel; 'Dick Whittington, only done in the costumeof Queen Anne's day instead of his own.'

  "'Then it is all true,' I shouted. 'By Jove, what a fool I've been; Isee it all now, every bit of it. Oh, Lal! Lal! how impossible you areto understand.' Of course, this was all so much Greek to Murkel, whohadn't the remotest idea what I was so excited about; but he wasthoroughly convinced that I meant to jump at his offer, and he thoughtI was merely madder than usual when I told him that I wouldn't sellDick Whittington for five thousand pounds if he offered it to me.

  "Murkel replaced Dick Whittington regretfully upon the rickety tableand sighed deeply.

  "'I suppose,' he said, 'that some forms of mental derangement areinseparable from some writers. The annoying part of it is that Iwanted this piece for my own cabinet. If I had bought it I shouldnever have sold it again. Well, if you want money, you know where toget it, old chap.'

  "'I do,' I replied, 'and I have as good as found it in an unexpectedquarter.' I took up the MSS. of the new book, lying upon the ricketytable actually in front of Dick Whittington.

  "'I will prophesy to you,' I said, 'and although it is a second-handsort of prophecy it is going to come true nevertheless. You see thismanuscript; this is going to make the first lot of money.'

  "Murkel looked at me curiously. Do what he would the poor chap couldnot rid his mind of the thought that I was mad, but I will say he wasvery patient with me.

  "'Give me the introduction to your publisher friend, and I will bet youa dinner, or two dinners, he accepts this as a start, and most probablyeverything else I write afterwards.'

  "'Of course,' debated Murkel, 'you are a very amazing person. I meetyou one day and you swear that nobody ever wants anything you do, andis never likely to want any of your work again; and then a few daysafter, without rhyme or reason, you swear they will take everything,even the things you haven't written. I don't pretend to consider youat all sane, but I am prepared to tackle the publishers for you; and,by Jove, you are really eccentric enough to have done something reallygood, so you may be right. But I cannot and will not understand whyyou cannot take a hundred guineas down for that little DickWhittington.'

  "'Do you believe in mascots, Murkel?' I asked.

  "'Yes,' he said. 'I've got a black cat in the shop that always sits ona big Chinese idol whenever I have any luck. I don't know what it is,but the combination of my black cat Timps and that Chinese idol isextraordinary, and the greatest mascot I know.'

  "Well, I told him that my mascots were a lion and the china DickWhittington.

  "'Where's the lion?' asked Murkel, always on the look-out for curios.

  "'Oh, that is at present in a collection,' I told him, at the same timefervently hoping that Lal would forgive me for ever referring to him asbeing in a collection, for I knew the feeling of majestic tolerationwith which he regarded the other three lions.

  "Very little more remains to be told, except that the person who wasmost astonished when my first book was instantly accepted was Murkel,and his astonishment appeared to greatly increase as each of mysucceeding books made their appearance in print, whilst to-day is oneof the red-letter days of my life, for the most important of all mybooks was published this morning, and so it is all doubtless intendedto form part of to-day's story; and, by the way, so is to-day's tea."

  * * * * *

  "Ridgwell, would you ring the bell for the housekeeper? I have orderedall the sort of cakes you and Christine like best."

  "I think it is a more wonderful story than Dick Whittington's,"commented Ridgwell, as he rang the bell; "but before we have tea, we doso want to see the little china Dick Whittington which made all yourstory come true, and which is worth such a lot of money."

  "You shall both see him presently, but at the present moment DickWhittington is safely packed up; he is going to be given away thisevening with a copy of my new book."

  "Given away?" echoed the children blankly.

  The Writer nodded.

  "I can't make out how you can bear to part with it," suggestedRidgwell; "I know I would never give it away. Who is it for?"

  "You will both see presently; and really, you know, if you come toconsider it, it is not of any use giving anybody something one does notcare for, for that is not a gift at all."

  "It seems jolly hard to part with the one thing you like best,"observed Ridgwell.

  The Writer laughed. "Ah! Ridgwell, that is the only kind of giftworth giving in the world."