of going away when she
called me back, and thrust it into my hand, carefully holding on to one
of 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 I
must say it fully rewarded all the efforts I made to wash it, and
somehow the more I looked at it the more beautiful I thought it was.

"There was something about that contemplative figure lying upon the
grass that gave me confidence and reassurance, and I found myself
regarding it as an old friend and talking to it, and when the big
tree-stump was filled with ink I used to sit and write from it for
hours. There always seemed to be encouragement and inquiry in the
laughing face that looked from the figure on the inkstand, as if it
were saying, 'Well, what are you going to write now, and when are you
going to finish it?' I began to imagine that it gave me inspiration
whenever I wrote; whether that was so or not, it certainly answered
much better than its predecessor, the dull old ink-bottle that had been
broken.

"So day by day I worked hard, and somehow became convinced that the
wonderful little inkstand helped and inspired me in some curious manner
which I could in no way account for, and after a few months I finished
my book, eking out a scanty existence with other odd literary jobs. It
was about this time that Murkel called on me.

"He stumbled up the winding stairs to my garret one day, smoking a
quite objectionable pipe, and declared that I was the only old
schoolfellow he had ever cared to call upon, as all the rest were
snobs, and wound up by stating that we probably got along so well
together as he came from the people, and he was certain that I came
from the people also, and only those people who came from the people
themselves ever got there eventually.

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

"I was only too thankful to accept this offer, and was saying so when a
curious thing happened. Murkel, whose eyes had been roaming around my
one attic room with the curious instinct of the dealer, and finding
nothing that in any way interested him, suddenly crossed over to my
rickety writing-table, and pouncing upon my inkstand emitted a low and
prolonged whistle which migh