o be sure,' said the old man, 'to be sure. It's tight packed, but it's
simple as A B C.'

There were questions Paul could not answer, and he and the old man
puzzled them out together. They drew closer and closer. The boy dared
to reveal his mind, and the father began to respect his opinion. By
the time the warm weather was round again they were fast friends. They
tramped up and down the path of the neglected garden arm-in-arm, and
talked of literature and politics and the world at large. Paul had
dreams, and sometimes he gave his father a glimpse of them. Armstrong
preached humility.

'L'arn, my lad,' he would say, almost sternly, 'l'arn before ye try to
teach.'

Paul had turned public instructor already, but that was his secret There
was a sort of treason in it, for Armstrong's rival, a young and pushing
tradesman, had started a weekly paper, and Paul was an anonymous
contributor to its pages. This journal was called the _Barfield
Advertiser, and Quarry-moor, Church Vale, and Heydon Hay Gazette_; but
it was satirically known in the Armstrong household as the _Crusher_,
and its leading articles (which were certainly rather turgid and
pompous) were food for weekly mirth. But one day this was changed.

'Why, William,' cried Mrs. Armstrong, 'this fellow's turned quite
sensible. You might ha' wrote this yourself. It's simply nayther more
nor less than you was sayin' last Wednesday at this very table.'

Paul's coffee went the wrong way, and his cough caused a momentary
diversion. But when Dick had vigorously thumped him on the back, and he
had resumed his seat at table, Armstrong read the article aloud.

'Ay, ay!' he said at the close, 'it's certainly my own opinion, and vary
cleanly put.'

Paul's coffee went the wrong way again, and again Dick thumped him
on the back. When the paper had gone the round of the household the
anonymous writer stole it, and carried it, neatly folded beneath his
waistcoat, to the office. He knew it by heart already, but he read it
insatiably over and over again. He was in print, and to be in print for
the first time is to experience as fine a delirium as is to be found in
love or liquor. The typed column ravished his senses, and the editorial
'we' looked imperial. He was 'we' in spite of shirt-sleeves and
ink-smeared apron of herden. In those days the _Times_ could uproot a
Ministry, but its editor in his proudest hour would have been a dwarf if
he had measured himself by Paul's self-appr