Quincy went up to his room and sat down at his writing table. The first letter was to his bankers, and enclosed a check for five hundred dollars, with a request to send the amount in bills by Adams Express to Eastborough Centre, to reach there not later than noon of the next Tuesday, and to be held until called for. The second letter was to a prominent confectioner and caterer in Boston, ordering enough ice cream, sherbet, frozen pudding, and assorted cake for a party of fifty persons, and fifty grab-bag presents; all to reach Eastborough Centre in good order on Monday night on the five minutes past six express from Boston. The third letter was to Ernst. It was short and to the point. "The pseudonym is--." And he left a blank space for the name. Then he signed his own. He glanced over his writing table and saw the three poems that Alice had given him to read. He added a postscript to his letter to Ernst. It read as follows: "I enclose three poems written by the same person who wrote the stories. Tell me what you think of them, and if you can place them anywhere do so, and this shall be your warrant therefor. Q.A.S." When his mail was in readiness he went downstairs to the parlor, taking a pen and bottle of ink with him, and saying to himself, "That pseudonym shall not be written in pencil." "I am in a state of hopeless indecision," remarked Alice. "I can think of Christian names that please me, and surnames that please me, but when I put them together they don't please me at all." "Then we will leave it to fate," said Quincy. He tore a sheet of paper into six pieces and passed three, with a book and pencil, to Alice. "Now you write," said he, "three Christian names that please you, and I will write three surnames that please me; then we will put the pieces in my hat, and you will select two and what you select shall be the name." "That's a capital idea," said Alice, "it is harder to select a name than it was to write the story." The slips were written, placed in the hat, shaken up, and Alice selected two, which she held up for Quincy to read. "This is not fair," said Quincy. "I never thought. Both of the slips are mine. We must try again." "No," said Alice, "it is 'Kismet.' What are the names?" she asked. "Bruce Douglas, or Douglas Bruce, as you prefer," said Quincy. "I like Bruce Douglas best," replied Alice. "I am so glad," said Quincy, "that's the name I should have selected myself." "Then I will bear your name in future," said Alice, and Quincy thought to himself that he wished she had said those words in response to a question that was in his mind, but which he had decided it was not yet time to ask her. He was too much of a gentleman to refer in a joking manner to the words which Alice had spoken and which had been uttered with no thought or idea that they bore a double meaning.