Vergoe set out to answer her inquiry.

"What's pals?" she reiterated therefore.

"Not quite clear in your little head yet--as it were--well, I should
say, we're pals, me and you."

"Are pals good?"

"The best. The very, very best. Now you just listen to me for a minute.
My granddaughter, Miss Lilli Vergoe, that is, she's wonderfully fond of
the old man, that is your humble. Now next time she comes round to see
him, I'll send up the call-boy--as it might be."

Hereupon Mr. Vergoe closed his left eye, put his forefinger very close
to the other eye, and shook it knowingly several times.

"Now you'd better go on or there'll be a stage wait, and get back to ma
as quick as you like."

Jenny prepared to obey.

"Wait a minute, though, wait a minute," and the old man fumbled in a
drawer from which at last he extracted a cracker. "See that? That's a
cracker, that is. Sometimes one or two used to get hidden in my pockets
on last nights, and--well, I used to keep 'em as a recollection of good
times, so to speak. This one was Exeter, not so very long ago neither.
Now you hook on to that end and I'll hook on to this, and, when I say
'three,' pull as hard as you like." The antagonists faced each other.
The cracker came in half with the larger portion in Jenny's hand, but
the powder had long ago lost all power of report. Age and damp had
subdued its ferocity.

"A wrong 'un," muttered the old man regretfully. "Too bad, too bad!
Well, accidents will happen--as it were. Come along, open your half."

Jenny produced a compact cylinder of mauve paper.

"Is it a sweet?" she wondered.

"No, it's a cap. By gum, it's a cap. Don't tear it. Steady! Careful does
it."

Mr. Vergoe was tremendously excited by the prospect. At last between
them they unrolled a gilded paper crown, which he placed round Jenny's
curls.

"There you are," he observed proudly. "Fairy Queen as large as life and
twice as natural. Now all you want is a wand with a gold star on the end
of it, and there's nothing you couldn't do, in a manner of speaking. Now
pop off to ma and show her your crown." He held her for a moment up to
the glass, in which Jenny regarded herself with a new interest, and when
he set her down again she went out of the room with the careful step of
one who has imagined greatness.

Downstairs she was greeted by her mother with exclamations of
astonishment.

"Whatever have you got on your head?"

"A crown."

"Who gave it you, for Heave