Byron
did it. If he wrote better Latin verse than Scroggins does, where is
it?"

"The first one, then," said Barbara, "ought to be Johnnie's parody that
he did in the holidays. Mamma gave him a title for it, 'Ode on a Distant
Prospect of leaving Harrow School.'"

Then it was that Valentine snatched the paper.

"Most of them are quite serious," Crayshaw here remarked.

"Ah, so this is the list of them," said Valentine, pretending to read:--

"'POEMS BY TWO SCHOOLBOYS.'

"One.--'Lines written on a late Auspicious Occasion' (I do so like that
word auspicious), 'and presented to my new step-uncle-in-law, with a
smile and a tear.' I'll read them:--

"'Respecting thee with all my might,
Thy virtues thus I sing.'"

"It's a story!" shouted Johnnie, interrupting him. "I don't respect you
a bit, and I never wrote it."

"Two," proceeded Valentine, "'The Whisper, by a Lisper,' and 'The Stick
of Chocolate, a Reverie.' Now, do you mean to tell me that you did not
write these?"

"No, I didn't! you know I didn't!"

"Four," Valentine went on, "'The City of the Skunk, an Ode.' Now, Cray,
it is of no use your saying you did not write this, for you sent me a
copy, and told me that was the poetical name for Chicago."

"Well," said Crayshaw, "I tried that subject because Mr. Mortimer said
something about the true sustenance of the poetic life coming from the
race and the soil to which the poet belonged; but George was so savage
when I showed it to him that I felt obliged to burn it."

"Five.--'To Mrs. M. of M.,'" continued Valentine. "It seems to be a
song:--

"'Oh, clear as candles newly snuffed
Are those round orbs of thine.'"

"It's false," exclaimed Crayshaw; "Mrs. Melcombe indeed! She's fat,
she's three times too old for me."

"Why did you write it, then?" persisted Valentine. "I think this line,--

"'Lovely as waxwork is thy brow,'

"does you great credit. But what avails it! She is now another's. I got
her wedding cards this morning. She is married to one Josiah Fothergill,
and he lives in Warwick Square.

"Six--'The Black Eye, a Study from Life.'"

"But their things are not all fun, cousin Val," said Gladys, observing,
not without pleasure, that Crayshaw was a little put out at Valentine's
joke about Mrs. Melcombe. "Cray is going to be a real poet now, and some
of his things are very serious indeed."

"This looks very serious," Valentine broke in; "perhaps it is one of
them: 'Thou