"To those they love, the gods lend patient hearing. I forget the Latin, but that does not matter just now. What I wish to convey is this--that I need no longer be idle unless I choose. I have got some work to do. Lend me your ears, both of you. About an hour after you, sir, had started for Dupley Walls I received a note from the editor of the _Tydsbury Courier_, in which he requested me to give him an early call. My curiosity prompted me to look in upon him as soon as breakfast was over. I found that he was brother to the editor of one of the London magazines, a gentleman whom I met one evening at a party in town. The London editor remembered me, and had written to the Tydsbury editor to make arrangements with me for writing a series of magazine articles on India, and my experiences there during the late mutiny. I need not bore you with details; it is sufficient to say that my objections were talked down one by one, and I left the office committed to a sixteen-page article by the sixth of next month." "You an author!" exclaimed the major. "I should as soon have thought of your enlisting in the marines." "It will only be for a few months, uncle,--only till my limited stock of experiences shall be exhausted. After that I shall be relegated to my natural obscurity, doubtless never to emerge again." "Hem," said the major, nervously. "Geordie, my boy, I have by me one or two little poems which I wrote when I was about nineteen--trifles flung off on the inspiration of the moment. Perhaps, when you come to know your friend the editor better than you do now, you might induce him to bring them out--to find an odd corner for them in his magazine. I wouldn't want paying for them, you know. You might just mention that fact; and I assure you that I have seen many worse things than they are in print." "What, uncle, you an author! Oh, fie! I should as soon have thought of your wishing to dance on the tight-rope as to appear in print. But we must look over these little effusions, eh, Miss Holme? We must unearth this genius, and be the first to give his lucubrations to the world." "If you, were younger, sir, or I not quite so old, I would box your ears," said the major, who seemed hardly to know whether to laugh or be angry. Finally he laughed, George and Janet chimed in, and all three went back indoors.