ou think Noel and I are aunt and nephew poets, or some
relationship of that kind?'

I didn't know what to say, and she went on--

'It's awfully straight of you to stick to what your Father tells you,
but look here, you take the shillings, and here's my card. When you
get home tell your Father all about it, and if he says No, you can just
bring the shillings back to me.'

So we took the shillings, and she shook hands with us and said,
'Good-bye, and good hunting!'

We did tell Father about it, and he said it was all right, and when
he looked at the card he told us we were highly honoured, for the lady
wrote better poetry than any other lady alive now. We had never heard of
her, and she seemed much too jolly for a poet. Good old Kipling! We owe
him those two shillings, as well as the Jungle books!

CHAPTER 5. THE POET AND THE EDITOR

It was not bad sport--being in London entirely on our own hook. We asked
the way to Fleet Street, where Father says all the newspaper offices
are. They said straight on down Ludgate Hill--but it turned out to be
quite another way. At least _we_ didn't go straight on.

We got to St Paul's. Noel _would_ go in, and we saw where Gordon was
buried--at least the monument. It is very flat, considering what a man
he was.

When we came out we walked a long way, and when we asked a policeman he
said we'd better go back through Smithfield. So we did. They don't burn
people any more there now, so it was rather dull, besides being a long
way, and Noel got very tired. He's a peaky little chap; it comes of
being a poet, I think. We had a bun or two at different shops--out of
the shillings--and it was quite late in the afternoon when we got to
Fleet Street. The gas was lighted and the electric lights. There is a
jolly Bovril sign that comes off and on in different coloured lamps. We
went to the Daily Recorder office, and asked to see the Editor. It is a
big office, very bright, with brass and mahogany and electric lights.

They told us the Editor wasn't there, but at another office. So we went
down a dirty street, to a very dull-looking place. There was a man there
inside, in a glass case, as if he was a museum, and he told us to write
down our names and our business. So Oswald wrote--

OSWALD BASTABLE
NOEL BASTABLE
BUSINESS VERY PRIVATE INDEED

Then we waited on the stone stairs; it was very draughty. And the man in
the glass case looked at us as if we were the