cans--no, publisher;
_Author and Publisher_.' It's quite the highest class of business: and
if any one tried to patronise me I could always explain that I just did
it to help, you bein' a child in matters of business. Geniuses are
mostly like that."

"Are they?"

"Yes, that's another of their drawbacks. And," continued Fancy,
"you'd be a celebrity of course, which means that we should be in the
magazines, with pictures--_A Corner of the Library_, and _The
Rose-garden, looking West, and Mrs Palmerston Burt is not above playing
with the Baby_, and you with your favourite dog--for we'd have both, by
that time. Oh, Pammy, where is the book?"

"Upstairs, mostly, but I got a couple o' chapters upon me--" Palmerston
tapped his breast-pocket--"If you really mean as you'd like--"
He hesitated, his colour changing from red to white. Here, on the point
of proving it, the poor boy feared his fate too much.

But Fancy insisted. They escaped together to Captain Hunken's garden;
and there, in the summer-house--by this time almost in twilight--he
showed her the precious manuscript. It was written (like many another
first effort of genius) on very various scraps of paper, the most of
which had previously enwrapped groceries.

"And to think," breathed Fancy, recognising some of Mr Rogers's trade
wrappers, "that maybe I've seen dad doin' up those very parcels, and
never guessed--well, go on! Read it to me."

"I--I don't read at all well," faltered Palmerston.

She tapped her foot. "I don't care how bad you read so long as you
don't keep me waitin' a moment longer."

"This is Chapter Nine. . . . If you like, of course, I could start by
tellin' you what the other chapters are about--"

"_Please_ don't talk any more, but read!"

"Oh, very well. The chapter is called '_Ernest makes Another Attempt._'
Ernest is what Mrs Bowldler calls the hero, which means that the book is
all about him. It begins--"

'It was late in the evening following upon the
events related in the previous chapter'

--I got that out of a paper Mrs Bowldler carries about in her pocket.
It is called 'Bow Bells,' and you can depend on it, for it's all about
the highest people--

'when Ernest rang at the bell of Number 20
Grovener Square.'

--I got that address, too, out of Mrs Bowldler. She said you couldn' go
higher than that. 'Not humanly speakin'' was her words, though I don't
quite know what she meant."

"But," objected