ts of the lost child. As a matter of course, the
fair boy with his broken arm turned up on the fire-engine, and brought
most of the family down the escape with his sound arm. Then by a sudden
transition the scene changed back to the organ-grinder's "cottage," on
the ground floor of which in another cradle slept another infant, a boy,
fair, of course, and beautifully made, showing great promise of physical
force and heroism of disposition.

"He was older than Alicia, and could speak a little. There was no one
in the room, and as he sat up in his cradle he felt very sad. Presently
two young organ-grinders came into the room. One was dark and vicious,
the other was fair [of course] and had a pleasant expression. They took
no notice of the baby, but sat and smoked and asked riddles of one
another. The fair one [of course!] was far the cleverer of the two, and
caused much laughter by his wit.

"`Can you tell me,' said he, in a pleasant silvery voice very unlike an
organ-grinder, `why an author is a queer animal?'

"`Give it hup,' said the vulgar one, who always put his `h's' wrong.

"`Because his tale comes out of his head!'

"It was long before the vulgar one saw it, and then he laughed so much
that the baby began to cry, and they had to go into the next room for
fear of disturbing it. Having left the door open, the fair baby got out
of its cradle, and, being old enough to walk, went quietly upstairs, and
there what should he see in a cradle in the room above but Alicia! This
was the first time the two met. They did not say much, but Cupid's
arrow went through them both from that minute. That's all," said Harry.

There was a silence, which at last I broke.

"And which chapter do you think we'd better put in?"

"That's just what I was going to ask you," said Harry.

"You see," said I cautiously, "you've got rather a lot about that fair
chap in yours, and he's not in the plot."

"Oh, he turns out somebody," said Harry.

"Who?"

"I don't know yet."

"He's not the hero, of course?" said I decisively; "he's to be a mixture
of both."

"Oh, of course," said Harry. "But, I say, don't you think there's
rather too much about scenery in yours? There's very little of that in
_Nicholas Nickleby_, or poetry either."

"No; that struck me as one of the weak points of _Nicholas Nickleby_,"
said I.

"I thought it was settled the hero was to be in it from the first?" said
Harry, falling back on another line of