Our friendship was quickly restored; but our poor novel, after that one evening, has never lifted up its head again. We have sometimes vaguely talked of finishing it, but we have been careful to avoid all discussion of details, still less all reference to Chapter One. In fact, we have come to the conclusion that it is better not to startle the world at too early an age. If you do, you are expected to keep it up, and that interferes with your enjoyment of life. When our Novel does come out, well, we think Conan Doyle, Wells, and those other fellows will sit up. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. Preface. OUR OWN PENNY-DREADFUL. I am always coming across old manuscripts. I am not sure of the date of the following, but I fancy it must have been written for a prize, which, strange to say, it failed to secure. The only conditions were that the story should have lots of "go" in it, that the incidents should be natural, the tone elevating, and the characters carefully studied. I ask any of my readers if this does not fulfil all these conditions? I know when it was returned to me as "not quite the style we care about," I was extremely angry, and replied that I should very much like to see what style they did care about, if not this. They had not the common politeness to reply! Another publisher to whom I submitted it actually wrote back that he was not in the habit of publishing "penny dreadfuls." I was never so insulted in all my life! However, as a specimen of the kind of story some boys read, and some editors do _not_ publish, the reader shall have my "penny dreadful," and decide for himself whether it has not lots of "go," is not strictly true to nature, elevating in tone, and carefully studied. If it is not, then he had better not read it! The Plaster Cast; Or Septimus Minor's Million. A Thrilling Story in Fifteen Chapters, by the Author of "Blugram Blunderbuss, or the Dog-Man." Sub-Chapter I. THE MURDER! The golden sun was plunging his magnificent head angrily into the sheen of the bronze Atlantic when Septimus Minor scaled the craggy path which leads from Crocusville to the towering cliff above. The wind came and went in fitful gusts, which now and again carried Septimus off his feet, and sometimes lifted him a foot or two over the edge of the rugged cliff in time for another eddy to carry him back. Nature this evening suited the gusty humour of Septimus Minor's breast. "The crisis of my life approaches!" he said to himself, as a magnificent wave from below leapt eight hundred feet in the air, and fell, drenching him from head to foot. "I am fifteen years old next week, and something here,"--here he laid his right hand on his left side--"tells me I am a man." As he spoke, another wave leapt skyward, and out of it emerged the form of a man. "Yes!" cried Septimus. "Her father!" Septimus was the youngest of seven children, most of whom were orphans. But we digress.