Shouldn't wonder at all," murmured the Writer; "delighted if I have
had the honour to be chosen for the mission, and it really sounds to me
like one of Lal's very rash promises."

"What!!!" It was a shriek from two children at once. Two pairs of
arms were suddenly flung around the Writer's neck, two pairs of arms
that were almost hugging him to death.

The Writer endured this onslaught throughout in the most becoming
manner.

"Lal _did_ send you then," shouted Ridgwell. "I knew it. How lovely!
Fancy your knowing him! Tell us all about it."

The Writer smiled. "I have known Lal almost as many years as I can
remember; he is one of my oldest and very dearest friends."

"Ridgie," said Christine solemnly, at this point, "do you remember the
motto of the cracker we pulled last night? It said--

"I'll whisper on this little page
A secret unto you:
The greatest wonder of the age
Shall suddenly come true."

But Ridgwell was beyond crackers, and beyond poetry; he felt, not
unreasonably, amidst the development of this new wonder, that he was in
possession of the real thing.

"I think," said the Writer, "I had better tell you all about it from
the very beginning, but you know really it is quite a long story."

Ridgwell and Christine arranged themselves comfortably to listen;
sometimes they looked at the fire, but more often at the face of the
Writer, but they never missed one word of his story.

"I expect," commenced the Writer, "my story is going to be very
different from anything you children may have imagined; in fact, my
life has turned out so utterly different from anything it promised to
be in the early beginning, that at times upon looking back it seems to
be like some wonderful fairy tale--utterly unlike the ordinary fairy
tales, however, one reads in books.

"The only two good fairies in my case were first and foremost our good
old friend Lal, and, secondly, a gentleman who in the early stages of
my life was always called the Miser, but who since has become one of
the wealthiest, most generous and notable personages in the City of
London. As a rule, whenever I think of my early childhood it is with a
shudder, for I was running about the streets of London minus any shoes
or stockings, with hardly any food save of the smallest and coarsest
description, selling newspapers in the streets until late at night, and
invariably soundly beaten if I did not take back some miserable coppers
at the