another stolen baby belonging to
another organ? Just as likely to have two stolen as one."

It did occur to me that if it came to that, all the characters in the
story might begin life in this romantic way. However, there seemed no
objection to starting the hero in an organ-grinder's cradle, and we
closed with the suggestion at once and got into bed.

I woke very early. I had the hero on my mind. I wanted him to be a
good one after the best model, and I could not help thinking that the
Harry in him ought not to be overdone. Besides, if he was to make
himself pleasant to the heroine, the less he was like Harry and the more
he was like Harry's chief friend the better. For sisters in fiction
never make much of their brothers, but they often make a lot of their
brothers' friends.

I nudged Harry with my elbow, in order to represent the case to him from
this point of view. I did it delicately and in a most conciliatory
manner.

"I was thinking, old man, as Alice is the heroine and you're her
brother, I might--don't you know--perhaps you'd like if--well, what I
mean to say is, perhaps I'd better do the gush, when it comes to that."

Happily Harry was scarcely awake, and did not take in all my meaning.

"All serene," said he, "we'll have as little of that as we can."

"I mean I think you'd do the parts about the villain and that sort of
thing better--don't you?"

But as Harry was asleep again I had to take silence for consent.

The day that followed was an anxious one. It is easy enough to get your
characters, but it is awful having to fix their names. And it is simple
work getting a plot, compared with the agony of dividing it up into
forty chapters!

This was the task before us to-day, and we retired as before to the
pier-head with pencils and paper, in order to do it beyond the sound of
Aunt Sarah's voice.

We endured agonies over the names. The hero's name should naturally
have been a judicious combination of the names of the two fellows we had
in our minds' eyes. But neither "Sydrey Sproutock" nor "Hardney
Hulltels" exactly pleased us. Finally we decided to call him Henry
Sydney, and, strange to say, it occurred to me it would be best as a
rule to speak of him by his surname, while Harry was equally strong
about calling him by his Christian name. At last we agreed that when
we, the authors, spoke of him it should be as Sydney, and that when the
heroine or any one else mentioned his name it should