r and decided we should make the hero
a mixture of two fellows--the fellow Harry liked best and the fellow I
liked best.

After this amicable arrangement it was comparatively clear sailing. We
had not to look far for the heroine, and it occurred to both of us that
it would be original as well as pleasant to make the villain a female
and middle-aged. As for minor characters, we were able to draw on our
acquaintance at Denhamby to supply them, and, failing that, Harry was
magnanimous enough to offer his father and mother as "not bad for some
of the side plots."

We had got our characters. That one walk on the pier settled them all.
We also stopped a bit to watch the people, we entered into conversation
with a sailor (who turned out to be deaf), and insinuated ourselves into
the front of a street row, all with a view to reproducing our
observations on life into "Our Novel."

The street row indeed furnished an inspiration for our plot. It was the
arrest of a make-believe Italian female organ-grinder, whose offence
appeared to be that she was carrying about in a cradle attached to the
organ an infant that did not belong to her. And as the infant brought
her in much more money than her music did, she protested in very strong
English against having it removed.

With the quickness of genius we saw in this incident the pivot on which
our novel should be made to turn.

The baby was the heroine, the organ-grinder the villain who had stolen
her from her high-born station in life. Two of the characters fitted at
a blow! We had even got the high-born parents ready if required, and
when sixteen years later the little truant was to discover her noble
station, we had our hero ready to take her home!

Between the pier-gate and Warrior Square we had the whole story worked
out.

"What has kept you little boys out so late?" asked a voice as we entered
Mr Hullock's hall. "It's not right. You should have been in bed by
eight."

It was Aunt Sarah! and we secretly condemned her on the spot to a public
execution in our last chapter.

As we undressed that evening another point was cleared up.

"We can't keep the hero hanging about sixteen years before we bring him
in," said Harry.

"Humph," I observed, "unless we said `sixteen years passed' at the end
of the first chapter, and then we might get him in in the second."

"It strikes me," said Harry dubiously, "he ought to be in it all
through. What do you say to making him