Again Palmerston's face fell. "I mayn't be one after all," he protested, but not very hopefully.

"Oh yes, I am sure you are! And, what's more, if you make a hit, as they say, I don't know but I might overlook it and take the risk.

You see, I'm accustomed to living with Mr Rogers, who is bound to go to h.e.l.l and that might turn out to be a sort of practice."

The boy stood silent, rubbing his head. He wanted time to think this out. Such an altered face do our ambitions present to most of us as they draw closer, nearer to our grasp!

Suddenly Fancy clapped her hands. "Why, of course!" she cried.

"I always had an idea, somewhere inside o' me, that I'd be a lady one of these days--very important and covered all over with di'monds, so that all the other women would envy me. You know that feelin'?"

"No-o," confessed Palmerston.

"You would if you were a woman. But, contrariwise, what I like almost better is keepin' shop--postin' up ledgers, makin' out bills, _to account rendered, second application, which doubtless has escaped your notice_, and all that sort of thing. I saw a shop in Plymouth once with young women by the dozen sittin' at desks, and when they pulled a string little b.a.l.l.s came rollin' towards them over on their heads like the stars in heaven, all full of cash; and they'd open one o' these b.a.l.l.s and hand you out your change just as calm and scornful as if they were angels and you the dirt beneath their feet. You can't think how I longed to be one o' them and behave like that. But the two things didn't seem to go together."

"What two things?"

"Why, sittin' at a desk like that and sittin' on a sofa and sayin'

'How d'e do, my dear? It's _so_ good of you to call in this dreadful weather, especially as you have to hire. . . .' But now," said Fancy, clasping her hands, "I see my way: that is, if you're really a genius.

You shall write your books and I'll sell them. '_Mr and Mrs Palmerston Burt, Author and_--what's the word?--pub--publicans--no, publisher; _Author and Publisher_.' It's quite the highest cla.s.s of business: and if any one tried to patronise me I could always explain that I just did it to help, you bein' a child in matters of business. Geniuses are mostly like that."

"Are they?"

"Yes, that's another of their drawbacks. And," continued Fancy, "you'd be a celebrity of course, which means that we should be in the magazines, with pictures--_A Corner of the Library_, and _The Rose-garden, looking West, and Mrs Palmerston Burt is not above playing with the Baby_, and you with your favourite dog--for we'd have both, by that time. Oh, Pammy, where is the book?"

"Upstairs, mostly, but I got a couple o' chapters upon me--" Palmerston tapped his breast-pocket--"If you really mean as you'd like--"

He hesitated, his colour changing from red to white. Here, on the point of proving it, the poor boy feared his fate too much.

But Fancy insisted. They escaped together to Captain Hunken's garden; and there, in the summer-house--by this time almost in twilight--he showed her the precious ma.n.u.script. It was written (like many another first effort of genius) on very various sc.r.a.ps of paper, the most of which had previously enwrapped groceries.

"And to think," breathed Fancy, recognising some of Mr Rogers's trade wrappers, "that maybe I've seen dad doin' up those very parcels, and never guessed--well, go on! Read it to me."

"I--I don't read at all well," faltered Palmerston.

She tapped her foot. "I don't care how bad you read so long as you don't keep me waitin' a moment longer."

"This is Chapter Nine. . . . If you like, of course, I could start by tellin' you what the other chapters are about--"

"_Please_ don't talk any more, but read!"

"Oh, very well. The chapter is called '_Ernest makes Another Attempt._'

Ernest is what Mrs Bowldler calls the hero, which means that the book is all about him. It begins--"

'It was late in the evening following upon the events related in the previous chapter'

--I got that out of a paper Mrs Bowldler carries about in her pocket.

It is called 'Bow Bells,' and you can depend on it, for it's all about the highest people--

'when Ernest rang at the bell of Number 20 Grovener Square.'

--I got that address, too, out of Mrs Bowldler. She said you couldn' go higher than that. 'Not humanly speakin'' was her words, though I don't quite know what she meant."

"But," objected Fancy, "you might want to start higher, in another book.

We can't expect to live all our lives on this one: and there oughtn't to be any come-down."

Palmerston smiled and waved his ma.n.u.script with an air of mastery.

He had thought of this.

"There's Royalty!"

"O-oh!" Fancy caught her breath. She felt sure now of his genius.

"We must feel our way," said Palmerston; "I believe in flyin' as high as you like so long as you're on safe ground. Of course," he went on, "there _is_ a danger. I don't know who _really_ lives in Grovener Square at Number 20; but they're almost sure not to be called Delauncy, and so there's no real hurt to their feelin's."

"Mrs Bowldler might know."

"You don't understand," explained Palmerston, who seemed, since breaking the ice of his confession, to have grown some inches taller, and altogether more masterful. "She don't know why I put all these questions to her. She sets it down to curiosity: when, all the time, I'm _pumpin'_ her."

"Oh!" Fancy collapsed.

Palmerston resumed:--

"'The second footman ushered him to the boudoir, where already he had lit several lamps, casting a subdued shade of rose colour. The Lady Herm Intrude reclined on a console in an att.i.tude which a moment since had been one of despair, but was now languid to the point of carelessness.'"

"What's a console?" inquired Fancy.

"They have one in all the best drawing-rooms," answered Palmerston.

"Mrs Bowldler--"

"Oh, go on!" She was beginning to feel jealous, or almost jealous.

"'She was attired in a gown of old Mechlin, with a deep fall and an indication of orange blossoms, and carried a shower bouquet of cl.u.s.ter roses, the--

"No, I've scratched that out. It said 'the gift of the bridegroom,' and I got it from a fashionable wedding; but it won't do in this place."

'Amid these luxurious surroundings Ernest felt his brain in a whirl. He cast himself on his knees before the rec.u.mbent figure on the console which gave no sign of life unless a long-drawn and half-stifled sob, which seemed to strangle its owner, might be so interpreted.

"Lady Herm Intrude," he cried in broken accents, "for the second time, I love you."'"

"It's lovely, Palmerston! Lovely!" gasped Fancy. "Why was he loving her for the second time?"

"He was _telling_ her for the second time. He had loved her from the first--it's all in the early chapters. . . . This is the second time he told her: and he has to do it twice more before the end of the book."

'As he waited, scarcely daring to breathe, for some answer, he could almost smell the perfume of the orchids which floated from a neighbouring vase and filled the apartment with its high-cla.s.s articles of furniture, the product of many lands.'

"Oh, Palmerston! And you that never had an 'ome of your own, since you was nine--not even a Scattered one! However did you manage to think of it all?"

She caught the ma.n.u.script from him and peered at it, straining her eyes in the dark.

"If you could fetch a lamp now?" she suggested.