"Thanks," said Partington, as he bowed himself out. "If that's the
truth, I'll try writing for juveniles. I'll sit right down to-night and
knock off a short story about 'Tommy and the Huckleberry-tree.' I don't
know whether huckleberries grow on trees or on huckles, but that will
make the tale all the more interesting. If they don't grow on trees
people will regard the story as romance. If they do grow on trees it
will be realism."

True to his promise, that night Partington did write a story, and
it was, as he had said it should be, about "Tommy and the
Huckleberry-tree"; and so amusing did it appear to the editor of that
eminent juvenile periodical, _Nursery Days_, because of what he supposed
was the author's studied ignorance on the subject of huckleberries, that
it was accepted instanter, and the name of Richard Partington Smithers
shortly appeared in all the glory of type.

Partington walked on air for at least a week after his effusion appeared
in print. He had visions night and day in which he seemed to see himself
the centre of the literary circle, and as he promenaded the avenue in
the afternoons he felt almost inclined to stop people who passed him by
to tell them who he was, and thus enable them to feast their eyes on one
whose name would shortly become a household word. All reasonable young
authors feel this way after their first draught at the soul-satisfying
spring of publicity. It is only that preposterous young person who was
born tired who fails to experience the sensations that were Partington's
that week; and at the end of the week, again like the reasonable young
author, he began to realize that immortality could not be gained by one
story treating of a fictitious Tommy and an imaginary huckleberry-tree,
and so he sat himself down at his desk once more, resolved this time to
clinch himself, as it were, in the public mind, with a tale of "Jimmie