Polly she ha! ha! allee same Camp Chap-lal.'

And so Camp Chaparral it was; the redwood board flaunted the
assertion before the eyes of the public (which was a rather limited
one, to be sure) in less than half an hour, and the artist, after
painting the words in rustic letters a foot long, cut branches of the
stiff, ungracious bushes and nailed them to the tree in confirmation
and illustration of the fact. He then carefully deposited the paint-
pot in a secret place, where it might be out of sight and touch of a
certain searching eye and mischievous hand well known and feared of
him; but before the setting sun had dropped below the line of purple
mountain tops, a small boy, who will be known in these annals as
Dicky Winship, might have been seen sitting on the empty paint-pot,
while from a dingy pool upon the ground he was attempting to paint a
copy of the aforesaid inscription upon the side of a too patient
goat, who saw no harm in the operation. He was alone, and very, very
happy.

And now I must tell you the way in which all this began. You may not
realise it, dear young folks, but this method of telling a story is
very much the fashion with grown-up people, and of course I am not to
blame, since I didn't begin it.

The plan is this: You must first write a chapter showing all your
people, men, women, children, dogs, and cats, in a certain place,
doing certain things. Then you must go back a year or two and
explain how they all happen to be there. Perhaps you may have to
drag your readers twenty-five years into the regions of the past, and
show them the first tooth of your oldest character; but that doesn't
matter a bit,--the further the better. Then, when everybody has