Home' being read and admired by sixteen different people before it is
even printed. That chapter has not been printed, it has not been
published; it will not be published till the May number of the _People's
Pageant_. Yet in Blackheath sixteen people already appreciate its
subtlety and its realism and all the rest of it. How do you account for
this, Miss Daisy Dolman?"

"I am the Right Honourable Etheltruda," said Alice. "At least--oh, it's
no use going on. We are not what we seem."

"Oddly enough, I inferred that at the very beginning of our interview,"
said the Editor.

Then the elastic finished slipping up Oswald's head at the back, and the
hat leapt from his head exactly as he had known it would. He fielded it
deftly, however, and it did not touch the ground.

"Concealment," said Oswald, "is at an end."

"So it appears," said the Editor. "Well, I hope next time the author of
the 'Golden Gondola' will choose his instruments more carefully."

"He didn't! We aren't!" cried Alice, and she instantly told the Editor
everything.

Concealment being at an end, Oswald was able to get at his trousers
pocket--it did not matter now how many boots he showed--and to get out
Albert's uncle's letter.

Alice was quite eloquent, especially when the Editor had made her take
off the hat with the blue bird, and the transformation and the tail, so
that he could see what she really looked like. He was quite decent when
he really understood how Albert's uncle's threatened marriage must have
upset his brain while he was writing that chapter, and pondering on the
dark future.

He began to laugh then, and kept it up till the hour of parting.

He advised Alice not to put on the transformation and the tail again to
go home in, and she didn't.

Then he said to me: "Are you in a finished state under Miss Daisy
Dolman?" and when Oswald said, "Yes," the Editor helped him to take off
all the womanly accoutrements, and to do them up in brown paper. And he
lent him a cap to go home in.

I never saw a man laugh more. He is an excellent sort.

But no slow passage of years, however many, can ever weaken Oswald's
memory of what those petticoats were like to walk in, and how ripping it
was to get out of them, and have your own natural legs again.

We parted from that Editor without a strain on anybody's character.

He must have written to Albert's uncle, and told him all, for we got a
letter next week. It said--

"MY DEAR KIDD