undergoing a Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil
Service Commissioners--and I offer the lot for what? For eight pound?
Not so much. For six pound? Less. For four pound. Why, I hardly
expect you to believe me, but that's the sum. Four pound! The stitching
alone cost half as much again. Here's forty-eight original pages, ninety-
six original columns, for four pound. You want more for the money? Take
it. Three whole pages of advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in
for nothing. Read 'em and believe 'em. More? My best of wishes for
your merry Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives and your
true prosperities. Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I
send them. Remember! Here's a final prescription added, "To be taken
for life," which will tell you how the cart broke down, and where the
journey ended. You think Four Pound too much? And still you think so?
Come! I'll tell you what then. Say Four Pence, and keep the secret."]

* * * * *

So every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our reunited life was
more than all that we had looked forward to. Content and joy went with
us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopped with
us when the two carts stopped. I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug-
Dog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening party, and his tail extra
curled by machinery.

But I had left something out of my calculations. Now, what had I left
out? To help you to guess I'll say, a figure. Come. Make a guess and
guess right. Nought? No. Nine? No. Eight? No. Seven? No. Six?
No. Five? No. Four? No. Three? No. Two? No. One? No. Now I'll
tell you what I'll do with you. I'll say it's another sort of figure
altogether. There. Why then, says you, it's a mortal figure. No, nor
yet a mortal figure. By such means you got yourself penned into a
corner, and you can't help guessing a _im_mortal figure. That's about
it. Why didn't you say so sooner?

Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my
Calculations. Neither man's, nor woman's, but a child's. Girl's or
boy's? Boy's. "I, says the sparrow with my bow and arrow." Now you
have got it.

We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more than fair
average business (though I cannot in honour recommend them as a quick
audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street where Mr.
Sly's King's Arms and