"_So I pray you--not of your charity, but of your
good-comradeship--to send me a little work to do. The
remuneration I leave to you. I am too destitute--and perhaps too
proud--to drive a bargain._
_Yours fraternally,
Arthur Brown._
"Put 'Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.' You can add the
Islington address when James Nimmo has fixed it up. Then type it out. Do
about seventy copies. I have been going through the lady members of the
Authors' Society, and have picked out most of its female geniuses. Now
for next week's list for the Kind Young Hearts! Three or four of the old
items can stand--particularly Papodoodlekos: he is a very lucrative old
gentleman--but the others must come out. I shall not send the revised
list, though, to your friend--what was that humourist's name?"
"Mr. Julius Mablethorpe," said Philip.
"That's the man. Now I think of it, I have read some novels by him. I
shall not send him the revised list, but I am grateful to him, all the
same, for one or two useful hints. That scheme for sending children to
the seaside ought not to have gone in at this time of year. The
foolishness of the average female philanthropist is so stupendous that
one grows careless. Instead, we will substitute a League of Playground
Helpers--a band of interfering young women whose primary act of
officiousness shall be to invade the East End and instruct slum-children
in the art of playing games scientifically and educatively. There's a
great rage for that sort of thing just now, though how one can make a
mud-pie, or play hop-scotch, or throw kittens into a canal
scientifically and educatively beats me. Still, the idea is good for a
few postal orders."
The list was completed, to a running accompaniment of this sort, and
Philip began to put away his writing materials.
Uncle Joseph glanced at the clock.
"There is just time for one more letter before dinner," he said. "I am
going to ring the changes on Tommy Smith a trifle. Next week, I think,
instead of writing to grown-ups, he must send an ill-spelt but touching
appeal to some little girls. About a dozen will do--the children of
wealthy or titled widows. The difficulty will be to get hold of the
brats' Christian names. However, we will work it somehow. We might say
'Little Miss So-and-So,' or, 'The Little Girl who lives with Mrs.
So-and-So.' Either will look childish and pretty. Just take this down,
and we'll see how it sounds:--
_"Dear Little Girl,--I am only a little boy about your age, and
my Daddy does not know I am writing to you._
"Put in spelling mistakes as usual."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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