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“`Give it hup,’ said the vulgar one, who always put his `h’s’ wrong.

“`Because his tale comes out of his head!’

“It was long before the vulgar one saw it, and then he laughed so much that the baby began to cry, and they had to go into the next room for fear of disturbing it. Having left the door open, the fair baby got out of its cradle, and, being old enough to walk, went quietly upstairs, and there what should he see in a cradle in the room above but Alicia! This was the first time the two met. They did not say much, but Cupid’s arrow went through them both from that minute. That’s all,” said Harry.

There was a silence, which at last I broke.

“And which chapter do you think we’d better put in?”

“That’s just what I was going to ask you,” said Harry.

“You see,” said I cautiously, “you’ve got rather a lot about that fair chap in yours, and he’s not in the plot.”

“Oh, he turns out somebody,” said Harry.

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“He’s not the hero, of course?” said I decisively; “he’s to be a mixture of both.”

“Oh, of course,” said Harry. “But, I say, don’t you think there’s rather too much about scenery in yours? There’s very little of that in Nicholas Nickleby, or poetry either.”

“No; that struck me as one of the weak points of Nicholas Nickleby,” said I.

“I thought it was settled the hero was to be in it from the first?” said Harry, falling back on another line of defence.

“So he is. I shall say in the next chapter that he was in the room underneath all the time,” said I, rather testily.

“Oh, well,” said Harry, “of course if you think yours is the best, you’d better stick it in. I’m out of it, if you’re going in for poetry.”

“You’re not obliged to do any poetry,” said I. “Thanks. I shouldn’t try unless I was sure of writing something that wasn’t doggerel,” said Harry. This was hitting me on a tender point. “Look here,” said I, starting up, “do you mean to tell me I write doggerel?”

“I didn’t say so.”

“You meant it. I’d sooner write doggerel than stuff I’d be ashamed to read in a `penny dreadful.’ Call yourself a fair boy!”

Alas for our novel! We spent half an hour that evening in anything but a literary competition.

Aunt Sarah remarked on Harry’s black eye and my one-sided countenance at breakfast next morning, and inquired artlessly if English composition had caused them. We truly answered, “Yes.”

Our friendship was quickly restored; but our poor novel, after that one evening, has never lifted up its head again. We have sometimes vaguely talked of finishing it, but we have been careful to avoid all discussion of details, still less all reference to Chapter One. In fact, we have come to the conclusion that it is better not to startle the world at too early an age. If you do, you are expected to keep it up, and that interferes with your enjoyment of life.

When our Novel does come out, well, we think Conan Doyle, Wells, and those other fellows will sit up.