_December 5th._

MY DEAR UNCLE:--I hope you haven't bought the book yet, as Dickson
Secundus has found out that there is a shop in the Strand where all the
books are sold cheap. You get threepence off every shilling, so you
would get a ten-and-six book for 7s. 10-1/2d. That will let you get me
a cheapish one next year, after all. I inclose the address.

IX.

_December 7th_.

DEAR UNCLE:--Dickson Secundus was looking to-day at "The Formation of
Character," which you gave me last year, and he has found out that it
was bought in the shop in the Strand that I wrote you about, so you got
it for 4s. 6d. We have been looking up the books I got from you at other
Christmases, and they all have the stamp on them which shows they were
bought at that shop. Some of them I got when I was a kid, and that was
the time you gave me 2s. and 3s. 6d. books; but Dickson Secundus and Fox
have been helping me to count up how much you owe me as follows:

_Nominal_ _Price_
_Price_ _Paid_

_L_ _s._ _d._ _s._ _d._
1850 "Sunshine and Shadow" 0 2 0 1 6
1881 "Honesty Jack" 0 2 0 1 6
1882 "The Boy Makes the Man" 0 3 6 2 7-1/2
1883 "Great Explorers" 0 3 6 2 7-1/2
1884 "Shooting the Rapids" 0 3 6 2 7-1/2
1885 "The Boy Voyagers" 0 5 0 3 9
1886 "The Formation of Character" 0 6 0 4 6
____________ ___________
1 5 6 19 1-1/2
0 19 1-1/2
_____________
0 6 4-1/2

Thus 6s. 4-1/2d. is the exact sum. The best plan will be for you not to
buy anything for me till I get my holidays, when my father is to bring
me to London. Tell William John I am coming.

P.S.--I told my father about the Arcadia Mixture, and that is why he is
coming to London.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXI.

ENGLISH-GROWN TOBACCO.

Pettigrew asked me to come to his house one evening and test some
tobacco that had been grown in his brother's Devonshire garden. I had
so far had no opportunity of judging for myself whether this