"Stunning fine plot!" said Harry. "If we only work it out it ought to be as good as _Nicholas Nickleby_." "Rather! By the way, we ought to have one or two funny chaps in it to work off some of our jokes. There's that one about the sculptor dying a horrid death, you know--because he makes faces and busts! I'd like to get that in somehow." "All serene! That might come in in the last chapters. I've got the _Family Jest-Book_ at home; we might pick a few things out of that, and then settle where they come in, and work in for them as we go on." We accordingly made a judicious selection, and having marked the initials of the character who was to bring them in against each, and also the number of the chapter in which they were to "come on," we really felt as if everything was now ready for our venture. We went to bed early, so as to get a good night and arise fresh to our work, not, however, before we had made an expedition to the stationer's and expended half a crown in manuscript paper, J and D pens, blotting- paper, blue-black ink, and forty small paper-fasteners. These provided, and the servant being particularly charged to call us at five o'clock, we retired to rest, and slept with our "skeleton" under the pillow. Sub-Chapter II. THE PLOT THICKENS. A grave question arose the moment we opened our eyes next morning. Who was to write the first chapter? A great deal depended on how it was done. The style of the first chapter would give tone to the whole novel, and, so to speak, show the way for all the other chapters. "I thought," said Harry, in his suspicious off-hand way, "if you took the even numbers and I took the odd, that might do." Might it? That would mean he would write Chapter One. I wanted to write Chapter One. On the other hand, it would mean I should have Chapter twelve, with the execution in it, which would suit me very well. I mentioned the fact, and could see that Harry had forgotten it, for he tried hard to back out of his arrangement. "I think you'd do the first chapter best," said he. "There's some scenery in it, you know, and you're more of a dab at that than I am." But my modesty preferred the even numbers, and our novel looked very like being water-logged before she had even been launched. A compromise was, however, arrived at. As the question of style was very important, it was decided we should _both_ write Chapter One, and then, after comparing the two attempts, arrange our further procedure accordingly. So I with a J pen, and Harry with a D retired to opposite corners of the room and plunged headlong into the "Theft of Alicia." It was a hard morning's work, and by the time the breakfast-bell rang we were both getting the steam up. The sight of Aunt Sarah brooding over the tea- tray had but one meaning for us, and Sister Alice's pretty face and soft voice spoke to me only of that baby I had left in my chapter lying on the seat in the square.