"By the way," said Mark Twain, interrupting Graham's thoughts. "Here are a couple of letters I forgot to mail to my poet friend, Bayard Taylor. They should probably be in some collection somewhere so, if you'd take them back with you, I'd appreciate it. I said in one letter that I'd probably forget to stamp it, and I did." Twain handed Graham the letters and indicated that he did not mind the boy's reading them if he wanted to. _There I go again_, thought Graham, _believing in my own dream._ In any event, he settled back in the seat and began to read the letters. However, before he could really get started, Charles Dickens interrupted him. "As usual, this Twain fellow takes over and hogs the conversation. In the very near future, young Graham, you and I will get together, and I'll tell you some very interesting stories of my childhood. In the meantime," he said, scribbling on a piece of paper that had some kind of drawing on it, "I have autographed a sketch of Boz to take back with you. Boz was the name I used when I first embarked on my literary adventures. In case you are wondering if there is a cryptic connection between Boz and Baum and Oz, you'll have to keep wondering about that. I was born at Portsea, Portsmouth, a few minutes before midnight on the seventh of February, 1812, forty-four years before Mr. Baum was born. I came to Oz in 1870, when Mr. Baum was only fourteen years old. He was not destined to write about Oz until some thirty years later. Now, when you come back, I'll tell you some more about my early days, and I'll make sure that our friend Twain doesn't bask in his self-perceived limelight while we're having our important discussions." [Illustration] "Now, you listen up, Mr. Dickens, sir," said Mark Twain with mock anger, for they were actually the best of friends. "I resent that, and I won't have you filling the boy's head with a lot of imaginary adventures and strange connections between words. Next you'll be telling him there's a link between the Land of Ev and Robert Evans--or even more ludicrous--that Frank Oz and Michael Ovitz of Hollywood have a mystical link to Oz because they have Oz in their names, or even more ludicrous, that you and Chris Dulabone have a connection because you both have the initials C.D. I mean, how far can you go with this stuff? I'm telling the boy about real things and about real life..."