TWO DICK WHITTINGTONS
The streets of London were alive with an unwonted gaiety, and crowds of
people waited patiently, and with an air of expectancy, to see the Lord
Mayor of London pass in state on his way from the Mansion House to the
Home for Children which he had built--about to be opened that day by
his Majesty the King.
Ridgwell and Christine sat in the broad, chintz-covered window-seat of
the Writer's chambers overlooking Trafalgar Square, and viewed the
great crowds of people beneath them with astonishment and interest.
"When the Lord Mayor passes my window," said the Writer, "he has
promised to look out as far as his dignity will permit and nod to me.
That he also intends to nod to our old friend Lal is a foregone
conclusion, for without that recognition upon his part I am sure the
day's ceremony would be incomplete."
"Will it be like a circus?" inquired Ridgwell.
"Yes, rather like a circus," admitted the Writer. "That is to say, a
very great deal of gilt and highly coloured horses, soldiers, and
inevitably one brass band playing, probably more than one."
"We can see Lal perfectly from here," said Christine.
"What is that large wreath for, placed between Lal's paws?" asked
Ridgwell.
"That," declared the Writer, "was placed there early this morning by
the Lord Mayor himself. He ordered it from Covent Garden, and he had
great difficulty in procuring it even there. The wreath is entirely
composed of water-lilies, Lal's favourite flower, and is put there in
honour of the occasion. Of course this is undoubtedly one of the great
days in the Lord Mayor's life, and he looks upon it as one of the
crowning features in his whole career."
A sudden increased agitation among the crowd, a rumble as of cheering
in the distance, and the first sound of trumpets and drums announced
that the procession was drawing near.
The first sign of the vanguard were some mounted policemen who rode
ahead to clear the way. There appeared to be little need for this
precaution, as the crowds were standing in most orderly rows along the
pavements.
"I'm sure Lal doesn't like those policemen," said Ridgwell decisively.
"No," agreed the Writer, "he sees such a lot of them where he is and,
of course, he detests crowds of any sort, they jostle and bump his
pedestal so much that it makes him feel uncomfortable. Here come the
mounted soldiers; they look very smart, don't they? And here is the
band, blowing their trumpets for all they are worth; some of them
almost look as if they would burst with the effort."
"Is that first carriage the Lord Mayor's?" inquired Christine.
"No, the first carriages are all the other Aldermen."
"Six carriages full," said Christine. "And look at those men in red
and gold standing up behind the last coaches."
"Yes," said Ridgwell, "strap-hangers. I wonder how they keep their
balance and keep all that powder on their heads."
"I fancy," said the Writer, "they have to practise it; and as for the
powder, I expect it is a secret preparation known only to themselves."
A burst of renewed cheering greeted the appearance of six cream horses,
richly caparisoned with red and gold trappings, urged on by outriders.
"Here is the Lord Mayor," exclaimed the Writer excitedly, as he
produced a large red silk handkerchief and waved it wildly out of the
window.
There could be no doubt whatever that a fat old gentleman with red
cheeks and a white moustache, whose portly form was covered with a
scarlet and fur gown, around which hung a lot of glittering golden
chains, and who had one side of the state coach all to himself, saw the
Writer's greeting and returned it. The children saw him look up at the
window and deliberately bow, then he turned his head in the direction
of Lal, the Pleasant-Faced Lion, and bowed and smiled.
"Quite gorgeous," observed Ridgwell when the procession had passed,
"but I always thought from what you told us that Alderman Gold was tall
and thin."
"Ah," said the Writer, "that was at the beginning of the story, and he
was a Miser then, and most misers are thin; but as he grew more and
more cheerful, more and more happy, he grew a bit fatter and a bit
fatter still, and then he got colour in his cheeks, until he became the
jolly, agreeable, fat, old, good-natured gentleman you have seen just
now in the distance. However, you will be able to see him at closer
quarters and make his jolly acquaintance for yourselves presently, for
he will call here and see me after all the ceremony is over."
"Will he be in time for tea?" inquired Christine.
"No, much too late for tea, Christine, but there will be a welcome for
him, which I know he is looking forward to, and something I think he
will like better than the big City banquet he has presided at, and it
will be waiting for him here--a good cigar and a drink," and the Writer
indicated a very handsome piece of old oak furniture at the end of the
long room, which contained mysterious little cupboards which opened in
odd angles and unexpected curves.
"I do hope he will turn up in his robes," ventured Ridgwell. "I rather
want to see what they are like."
"We must wait and see about that, and as it must be some considerable
time before tea, and a longer time still before His Worshipful the
Mayor can possibly be here, I propose to finish the rest of the story I
told you, right up to the present time. Of course, Lal may give the
sign he promised to-night, or he may not; if he does you will both be
here to see it."
Thereupon Ridgwell and Christine curled themselves up upon the broad
window seat, and prepared to listen.
The Writer closed the window, and they all noticed that the crowds
beneath were rapidly dispersing; occasionally some one would stop for a
second and look at the big wreath of water-lilies between the Lion's
paws, but the majority of people passing appeared not to have noticed
it at all.
"Where did I get to in the story?" asked the Writer.
"Lal had said his last word to you," volunteered Ridgwell; "and what I
particularly want to know is this: how did that second mysterious
promise about Dick Whittington come true eventually, and did you ever
meet Dick Whittington as Lal declared that you would, and did he really
bring you fame and fortune when you met him?"
The Writer smiled. "Yes, indeed I met him, but not in any way or
fashion that I should ever have expected. Of course both of you
children know Lal well enough by this time to realise that he loves a
little joke of his own at our expense, and many of his mysterious
promises, although they come true in a way, turn out to be utterly and
completely different from what he would seem to suggest to us by his
words; in fact, Lal is like a great happy conjuror or wizard who dearly
loves to mystify us with a trick. I am convinced he enjoys our
amazement at any of his pet tricks, as much as he enjoys the laugh he
has at our expense."
"That's right," said Ridgwell; "he tricked Chris and me finely once. I
haven't forgiven him so very long for it, and it made me feel very
uncomfortable for a good while."
"Everybody forgives Lal in the end," laughed the Writer; "one simply
cannot help oneself, but really his pranks are too absurd, and yet when
I found out how I had been tricked, I couldn't be cross with him, for I
actually loved his funny old ways more than before, if such a thing
were possible. To continue my story where I left off, Alderman Gold
seemed in some miraculous way to have had much more than his sight
restored to him that night. The first thing he did was to lift the
body of poor Sam very gently, and as we left the Square he called a
cab, and whilst we drove to his big mansion in Lancaster Gate, he asked
me to tell him everything I could remember about my short life up to
that time. Of course, I did so in my own peculiar fashion; the
verbiage of the street and the gutter must have been freely sprinkled
about during that narrative. Sometimes he looked thoughtful, and at
other times he lay back in the cab and laughed out loud. When we
arrived at his big house, which seemed to me at that time to be a
mighty great mansion, he first made his way into a very big garden at
the back where there were a lot of trees, and opening a gardening shed,
he got a spade and dug a grave for Sam deep down under the trees, and
it is there with his name, which was afterwards carved on a piece of
wood, until this day.
"Whilst my childish tears were still flowing as the result of this sad
ceremony, a lady came down the garden path in the moonlight, and as she
joined us I noticed that although she appeared a little startled, she
had a most beautiful face.
"'I didn't know it was you, sir, I couldn't think who could be digging
in the garden at this time of night, and I grew frightened.'
"'Mrs. Durham,' said the Alderman earnestly, 'I was digging a grave for
the dead pet of this small piece of humanity here, who will henceforth
be one of your special charges.'
"Mrs. Durham glanced at the Alderman rather in amazement, I thought, as
if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses, but she looked at me as
she has ever done in a most kindly way.
"'Skylark,' said the Alderman, 'this is Mrs. Durham, my housekeeper.'
Perhaps the Alderman had seen the expression upon Mrs. Durham's face,
and had interpreted it correctly, for he added, 'Mrs. Durham, I am
somewhat ashamed to say that in the grave of a faithful and most
devoted creature I have here buried metaphorically, for good and all,
as many of the reprehensible habits of my old life as I can cast at
once, therefore, if I seem to you to be very different in the future,
you may know there is a good reason for my being so. Could you
conveniently take this infant and get him something substantial to eat
and drink, and see he is put to bed?'
"Mrs. Durham said, 'Very well, sir,' and taking my hand led me into the
house; but she still looked amazed, as if she had seen a ghost, I
thought.
"A good many other people, I fancy, must have looked amazed the next
day, when in the Alderman's big City offices all the clerks found that
their salaries were to be raised. I rather imagine the office boy was
the most astonished of all, for upon discovering that his master had
raised his weekly remuneration to a pound a week, he was heard to
exclaim, 'Well, that knocks all, that is if the Governor hasn't got
softening of the brain!'
"The Alderman didn't stop there by a long way, for I know that all the
servants in his house commenced to have a different time of it, and his
thoughtfulness, as far as I was concerned, was more than wonderful.
"I remember a few days after my arrival he called a council of war with
Mrs. Durham, at which I was present, and I may say in passing, that
Mrs. Durham and I were by this time fast friends.
"'There is one thing that must be done at once, Mrs. Durham,' I
remember him saying during that important interview; 'the youngster
must go at once to school. Now the difficulty is this: I don't want
him to start at a disadvantage from the very beginning, and speaking as
he does now, no ordinary school would take him.'
"'I'm afraid not, sir,' debated Mrs. Durham.
"'Very well, then,' said the Alderman, 'at present there is only one
thing to do; we must have somebody here to teach him English, anyway to
speak properly and to write and spell before he goes to a school. It
must be done, but I think myself it is going to take time,' concluded
the Alderman. Then he put on his hat and started for the City.
"I am not going to dwell upon this youthful period of my life, for
everybody's school-days very much resemble every other person's, but I
do know that the Alderman's belief that my education would take time
proved to be only too true. I shall never forget how long and
painfully I worked and toiled to speak my verbs in their proper tenses,
to stop dropping my aitches, how I longed to drop the Cockney slang,
how my life became possessed with a sort of terror that I should come
out with some expression that would cause concern to either my
benefactor or to Mrs. Durham.
"Well, I strove, and at last I succeeded so well that I was sent to a
fine school where I received a first-class education, and the only
effect of the great struggles I went through at this time was a sort of
nervousness which I shall have all through my life, and which results,
no doubt, from intense anxiety all those years not to make mistakes.
"And so I skip along until one night after the school had broken up at
the end of a winter term. I remember it all so well. I had taken the
best prizes in the fifth form, I was barely fifteen, and I rushed home,
tore into the library, and emptied all those beautifully bound books
into my benefactor's lap. He had been smoking his cigar, and was
dozing in front of the fire.
"'What do you think of that, Dad?' I yelled. I always called him Dad
as a sort of distinction, for although he wasn't my father really, he
had been a ripping father to me.
"'Bless my heart, my boy,' he said, 'have you taken all these prizes?
Why, I'm proud of you.'
"'And I proud of you,' I said; then I laughed at him. 'You've tried to
keep a secret from me, Dad,' I cried, 'and you haven't succeeded a bit.
Where's Mum?'
"'Now how on earth did you know that, miles away at school, too?'
laughed the Alderman.
"'Read it in the papers days ago. Where is she, Dad? I want to give
her a good hug.'
"'I'm here, dear boy,' said a voice just over my shoulder, a voice I
knew so well, that had helped me more in my childish hours than I could
ever count, a voice that was perhaps the one that had taught me to
speak correctly in those trying early days. She wasn't Mrs. Durham any
longer, she was Mrs. Gold, but she hadn't altered one bit, and she was
Mum then, as she has always been since.
"It wouldn't be honest to skip the next part of the story, and yet I
always want to omit this part somehow, because it is entirely composed
of events brought about by my own selfishness, obstinacy and
pig-headedness, although as a young man I never realised the great
grief and the real trouble I was causing to people who had always loved
me and done everything for me.
"It started after the time I had left the University of Oxford. I had
just commenced to feel my wings, so to speak. Everything there had
helped to increase and nourish my love of literature, the set I mixed
with had placed me on a sort of pedestal which I in no way deserved,
everybody seemed to expect a lot from me, every one seemed to believe I
would do great and wonderful things, and what was more disastrous
still, I believed I should do wonderful things myself. Imbued with
these beliefs, I went home after my last year at Oxford, determined to
be a great writer, mark you, not an ordinary writer, since I was
positively assured of the fact that I had only to make an appearance in
print to be instantly proclaimed one of the immortals. Whilst I was in
this ridiculous frame of mind, Dad unfolded to me the cherished scheme
of his life. It was that I should go into his office and learn the
business, and one day become the head of the firm.
"I think my blank face must have told them the utter hopelessness of
the scheme, even before I had explained to them all my hopes and
beliefs as to what I intended to be. One of the things I regret most
in my life was the grief I saw only too plainly upon the old Dad's
face. He had been brought up a business man all his life, he didn't
believe in Literature as a living. He never argued, he didn't storm,
hardly said anything, except begging me in an appealing sort of way to
reconsider my decision. But I saw at once that I had dealt a
death-blow to all his hopes, and, like the selfish young brute I was, I
didn't care so long as I got my own way.
"I must have been utterly mad at the time, or intoxicated with my own
belief in myself, for I even went further, and said I was going away
without any further help of any sort, and that I would make a name, and
not come back until I had done so. I refused all assistance; I only
wanted their good-will and belief in me, and this I knew neither of
them could honestly give me. The Dad implored me to let him assist me;
they both begged me to live at home until I could rely upon myself,
feel my own feet, or lastly, the most fatal sentence they could have
uttered in my state of pride, to remain at home until I realised the
_failure_ I was about to make and alter my mind.
"What a hopeless and silly thing is pride. It must be a dangerous
thing, too, if it can suddenly choke years of love and devotion.
"Pride was uppermost then when I left the house where we had all been
so happy, and went out into the world, and I told them both I would
only return when I had made myself famous, and not before. I believe
they both broke down when I left, but I was a selfish young brute, and
I never saw their view of things, nor how bitterly it must have hurt
them. Retribution was not long in coming; I found as time went on that
there were dozens of men, and women too, who could write better than I
could. I found a living was not easy to get. I went even further
still, and found at last that it was impossible to get any living at
all. Education--there were hundreds of men, highly educated men, too,
without any means of earning a living. Inspiration--and I had prated
about inspiration often enough; inspiration only became inspiration
when it was recognised as such. Luck, chance--I found there were no
such things, save as words. Money--I never made any now, and gradually
I went down and down, grew shabby, was passed hurriedly by friends of
my own choosing; then followed shabby rooms and little food, only to
give place in turn to an attic and no food at all. Pride must have
been still at work with a vengeance, for whatever I suffered there was
not a single day or night that I could not have rushed home and been
welcomed like the Prodigal of old, and been rejoiced over. But the
very idea of this gave me a chill feeling of horror. How could I go
home with all my boasts unfulfilled? Was I to creep home a
self-confessed failure, with the alternative of acknowledging it and
mending my ways and becoming the head of a business firm with a heart
embittered for life? I felt I would never do this. I would prefer to
starve upon the Embankment, and when I made that resolution I knew only
too well what I was in for. I had done the same thing in my earlier
life, only it needed a far greater courage to face that life now than
it required then. Things were at their very worst when one day, as I
was wending my way through the poverty-stricken locality in which I
lived, I was hailed by my name. The man was shabbily dressed, but
about my own age as far as I could gather, yet I never remembered
having met him before.
"'You don't remember me?' he asked.
"'No,' I replied.
"'Humph!' he rejoined, 'and yet at school you had quite a slap-up fight
upon my behalf, which ought to have been a lesson to snobs in general,
simply because I insisted upon talking to my own father when he was
driving one of his own furniture vans.'
"'Murkel Minor,' I murmured. 'Jove, yes, I remember.'
"'Well, I'm a dealer now, got a place of my own, first-class antiques,
you know, doing rather well, too.'
"I nodded.
"'But, I say, how about yourself? you don't look up to much. What are
you doing? You know all the swell chaps at school, who always looked
down on me, used to think you would do no end of things.'
"Somehow or other a sudden feeling of utter frankness came over me. 'I
am not doing anything,' I said. 'I've never done anything, and I don't
believe now I ever shall do anything.'
"'What are you supposed to do?' asked Murkel, and he asked it in rather
a nice way.
"'Writing,' I said.
"'Books?'
"'Yes, and stories, and any blessed thing that comes along; that is to
say, when it _does_ come along.'
"Murkel mused for awhile as we walked along, and to this day I do not
know whether he considered he was paying off an old debt, or whether he
really required my services. Anyway he told me he wanted a descriptive
catalogue written of some of his best antiques, their history
guaranteed and authenticated, and that he would pay me a fair sum for
writing it.
"I left my one-time schoolfellow Murkel Minor, with the certainty of
work for which I should be paid, and with something like a ray of hope,
and oddly enough I did not lament over the strange fortune which had
prevented any one from accepting any of my books or poems, but had
given me instead the writing of a catalogue of bric-à-brac. There was
one thing I often resented in my own mind, and frequently sneered at
most bitterly whenever I remembered it; that was the fact that Lal had
prophesied that I should become great, and also that I should meet Dick
Whittington. Both these imaginary things I regarded now as being
utterly unreliable, and looked upon as two ghostly myths of the past.
I might have known better. The nervousness from which I suffered, and
which I have already alluded to, was becoming so marked that it greatly
stood in my way, particularly whenever I had any writing to do. I
would fidget, bite my fingers, nibble the pen, break the nibs, a
thousand things sooner than deliberately sit down to write.
Concentration seemed at times to me wholly impossible. One day, after
sacrificing many nibs, and breaking my only ink-bottle, I settled down
sufficiently to finish Murkel's catalogue, and received the sum of five
pounds for the work. It seemed untold riches to me at the time. As I
went homeward through the maze of dirty streets towards where my garret
was situated, I had to pass through one where the outside pavement
stalls were always heaped up upon either side of the way with every
imaginable thing from greengrocery and scrap-iron to old prints and
china-ware.
"Upon one of these stalls an inkstand immediately attracted my
attention, partly from the fact that I had broken my own ink-bottle,
and had resolved to buy another, but more particularly because this
inkstand appeared to me to be one of the most uncommon receptacles for
ink I had ever seen. It was made in what I judged must be some old
form of china-ware I never remembered to have seen before, and beneath
the dirt which was thickly coated over it I could see that both the
modelling and colouring of it were very beautiful. It represented a
figure lying upon the ground beside a big tree-stump, which, after the
mud should be scraped out of it, was evidently intended to contain ink,
and a milestone, when a similar operation had taken place, would
doubtless contain one pen; a coloured three-cornered hat flung beside
the figure upon the ground was obviously designed to hold a taper.
"The inkstand attracted me strangely, and I was so fascinated with it
that I could not take my eyes off it. The woman to whom the stall
belonged, doubtless spotting a likely customer, asked me how much I
would give her for it. I deliberated for some time, as I had not the
remotest idea what its value might be in her eyes, so I offered her
eighteenpence as a sort of compromise between the inkstand and other
articles ticketed upon her stall.
"'Give us two bob, and it's yours,' suggested the stall woman.
However, I was firm, and was upon the point of going away when she
called me back, and thrust it into my hand, carefully holding on to one
of the square corners of it until she saw the money safely deposited.
"It took me some time to clean it properly when I got it home, but I
must say it fully rewarded all the efforts I made to wash it, and
somehow the more I looked at it the more beautiful I thought it was.
"There was something about that contemplative figure lying upon the
grass that gave me confidence and reassurance, and I found myself
regarding it as an old friend and talking to it, and when the big
tree-stump was filled with ink I used to sit and write from it for
hours. There always seemed to be encouragement and inquiry in the
laughing face that looked from the figure on the inkstand, as if it
were saying, 'Well, what are you going to write now, and when are you
going to finish it?' I began to imagine that it gave me inspiration
whenever I wrote; whether that was so or not, it certainly answered
much better than its predecessor, the dull old ink-bottle that had been
broken.
"So day by day I worked hard, and somehow became convinced that the
wonderful little inkstand helped and inspired me in some curious manner
which I could in no way account for, and after a few months I finished
my book, eking out a scanty existence with other odd literary jobs. It
was about this time that Murkel called on me.
"He stumbled up the winding stairs to my garret one day, smoking a
quite objectionable pipe, and declared that I was the only old
schoolfellow he had ever cared to call upon, as all the rest were
snobs, and wound up by stating that we probably got along so well
together as he came from the people, and he was certain that I came
from the people also, and only those people who came from the people
themselves ever got there eventually.
"After I had listened patiently to this harangue he came to the point
by declaring he was a great friend of a publisher who sometimes bought
the Murkel curios, furniture, china, pictures, etc., and if I liked he
would get him to read my new book.
"I was only too thankful to accept this offer, and was saying so when a
curious thing happened. Murkel, whose eyes had been roaming around my
one attic room with the curious instinct of the dealer, and finding
nothing that in any way interested him, suddenly crossed over to my
rickety writing-table, and pouncing upon my inkstand emitted a low and
prolonged whistle which might have been emblematical of either
astonishment or delight.
"'Don't drop that inkstand,' I said. 'I'm very fond of that.'
"'Drop it!' almost shouted Murkel, 'drop it! Great Scott, do you know
_what_ it is?'
"'Yes,' I said, 'of course, it's an ink-stand.'
"Murkel looked at me almost pityingly. 'Oh, my great aunt,' he said,
'the ways of writers are beyond understanding. Here's one who lives in
a garret, probably hasn't enough to eat, and upon a rickety
three-legged writing-table, which would be a disgrace to a fifth-rate
coffee-house, he has a jewel worth a hundred guineas and more.'
"'Bosh! you're joking,' I retorted.
"Murkel gave a queer smile. 'Am I?' he said. 'Well, I am prepared to
go back to my place and write you a cheque for a hundred guineas for
this, now on the spot.'
"I suppose I still continued to stare at him stupidly, and most likely
the signs of my utter disbelief were plainly to be seen in my
countenance, for Murkel continued hurriedly--
"'It's my business, I never make a mistake. This inkstand is Old Bow
china, date--early Queen Anne. My friend, there are not five of these
left in the world to-day, there are not four, and this is probably the
most perfect one in existence; and what makes it so valuable, apart
from its glaze, is that it was done by a fine artist, and it is a
famous legendary figure perfectly executed. In fact, it is none other
than the famous Dick Whittington.'
"'What!' It was my turn to shout this time. 'Dick Whittington!' I
cried.
"'Of course,' said Murkel; 'Dick Whittington, only done in the costume
of Queen Anne's day instead of his own.'
"'Then it is all true,' I shouted. 'By Jove, what a fool I've been; I
see it all now, every bit of it. Oh, Lal! Lal! how impossible you are
to understand.' Of course, this was all so much Greek to Murkel, who
hadn't the remotest idea what I was so excited about; but he was
thoroughly convinced that I meant to jump at his offer, and he thought
I was merely madder than usual when I told him that I wouldn't sell
Dick Whittington for five thousand pounds if he offered it to me.
"Murkel replaced Dick Whittington regretfully upon the rickety table
and sighed deeply.
"'I suppose,' he said, 'that some forms of mental derangement are
inseparable from some writers. The annoying part of it is that I
wanted this piece for my own cabinet. If I had bought it I should
never have sold it again. Well, if you want money, you know where to
get it, old chap.'
"'I do,' I replied, 'and I have as good as found it in an unexpected
quarter.' I took up the MSS. of the new book, lying upon the rickety
table actually in front of Dick Whittington.
"'I will prophesy to you,' I said, 'and although it is a second-hand
sort of prophecy it is going to come true nevertheless. You see this
manuscript; this is going to make the first lot of money.'
"Murkel looked at me curiously. Do what he would the poor chap could
not rid his mind of the thought that I was mad, but I will say he was
very patient with me.
"'Give me the introduction to your publisher friend, and I will bet you
a dinner, or two dinners, he accepts this as a start, and most probably
everything else I write afterwards.'
"'Of course,' debated Murkel, 'you are a very amazing person. I meet
you one day and you swear that nobody ever wants anything you do, and
is never likely to want any of your work again; and then a few days
after, without rhyme or reason, you swear they will take everything,
even the things you haven't written. I don't pretend to consider you
at all sane, but I am prepared to tackle the publishers for you; and,
by Jove, you are really eccentric enough to have done something really
good, so you may be right. But I cannot and will not understand why
you cannot take a hundred guineas down for that little Dick
Whittington.'
"'Do you believe in mascots, Murkel?' I asked.
"'Yes,' he said. 'I've got a black cat in the shop that always sits on
a big Chinese idol whenever I have any luck. I don't know what it is,
but the combination of my black cat Timps and that Chinese idol is
extraordinary, and the greatest mascot I know.'
"Well, I told him that my mascots were a lion and the china Dick
Whittington.
"'Where's the lion?' asked Murkel, always on the look-out for curios.
"'Oh, that is at present in a collection,' I told him, at the same time
fervently hoping that Lal would forgive me for ever referring to him as
being in a collection, for I knew the feeling of majestic toleration
with which he regarded the other three lions.
"Very little more remains to be told, except that the person who was
most astonished when my first book was instantly accepted was Murkel,
and his astonishment appeared to greatly increase as each of my
succeeding books made their appearance in print, whilst to-day is one
of the red-letter days of my life, for the most important of all my
books was published this morning, and so it is all doubtless intended
to form part of to-day's story; and, by the way, so is to-day's tea."
* * * * *
"Ridgwell, would you ring the bell for the housekeeper? I have ordered
all the sort of cakes you and Christine like best."
"I think it is a more wonderful story than Dick Whittington's,"
commented Ridgwell, as he rang the bell; "but before we have tea, we do
so want to see the little china Dick Whittington which made all your
story come true, and which is worth such a lot of money."
"You shall both see him presently, but at the present moment Dick
Whittington is safely packed up; he is going to be given away this
evening with a copy of my new book."
"Given away?" echoed the children blankly.
The Writer nodded.
"I can't make out how you can bear to part with it," suggested
Ridgwell; "I know I would never give it away. Who is it for?"
"You will both see presently; and really, you know, if you come to
consider it, it is not of any use giving anybody something one does not
care for, for that is not a gift at all."
"It seems jolly hard to part with the one thing you like best,"
observed Ridgwell.
The Writer laughed. "Ah! Ridgwell, that is the only kind of gift
worth giving in the world."