man said Mr Salteena
rolling over in the costly bed. Mr Clark is nearly out of the bath sir
announced Horace I will have great pleasure in turning it on for you
if such is your desire. Well yes you might said Mr Salteena seeing it
was the idear." Mr Salteena cleverly conceals his emotion, but as soon
as he is alone he rushes to Ethel's door, "I say said Mr Salteena
excitedly I have had some tea in bed."

"Sometimes visitors came to the house." Nothing much in that to us,
but how consummately this child must have studied them; if you
consider what she knew of them before the "viacle" arrived to take
them back to the station you will never dare to spend another week-end
in a house where there may be a novelist of nine years. I am sure that
when you left your bedroom this child stole in, examined everything
[Pg x] and summed you up. She was particularly curious about the articles
on your dressing-table, including the little box containing a reddish
powder, and she never desisted from watching you till she caught you
dabbing it on your cheeks. This powder, which she spells "ruge," went
a little to her head, and it accompanies Ethel on her travels with
superb effect. For instance, she is careful to put it on to be
proposed to; and again its first appearance is excused in words that
should henceforth be serviceable in every boudoir. "I shall put some
red ruge on my face said Ethel becouse I am very pale owing to the
drains in this house."

Those who read will see how the rooms in Hampton Court became the
"compartments" in the "Crystale" Palace, and how the "Gaierty" Hotel
grew out of the Gaiety Theatre, with many other agreeable changes. The
novelist will find the tale a model for his future work. How
incomparably, for instance, the authoress dives [Pg xi] into her story
at once. How cunningly throughout she keeps us on the hooks of suspense,
jumping to Mr Salteena when we are in a quiver about Ethel, and
turning to Ethel when we are quite uneasy about Mr Salteena. This
authoress of nine is flirting with her readers all the time. Her mind
is such a rich pocket that as she digs in it (her head to the side and
her tongue well out) she sends up showers of nuggets. There seldom
probably was a novelist with such an uncanny knowledge of his
characters as she has of Mr Salteena. The first line of the tale
etches him for all time: "Mr Salteena was an elderly man of 42 and
fond of asking people to stay with him." On the next page S