Then we waited on the stone stairs; it was very draughty. And the man
in the glass case looked at us as if we were the museum instead of him.
We waited a long time, and then a boy came down and said--

'The Editor can't see you. Will you please write your business?' And he
laughed. I wanted to punch his head.

But Noel said, 'Yes, I'll write it if you'll give me a pen and ink, and
a sheet of paper and an envelope.'

The boy said he'd better write by post. But Noel is a bit pig-headed;
it's his worst fault. So he said--'No, I'll write it _now_.' So I
backed him up by saying--

'Look at the price penny stamps are since the coal strike!'

So the boy grinned, and the man in the glass case gave us pen and paper,
and Noel wrote. Oswald writes better than he does; but Noel would do
it; and it took a very long time, and then it was inky.

DEAR MR EDITOR, I want you to print my poetry and pay for it,
and I am a friend of Mrs Leslie's; she is a poet too.

Your affectionate friend,

NOEL BASTABLE.

He licked the envelope a good deal, so that that boy shouldn't read it
going upstairs; and he wrote 'Very private' outside, and gave the letter
to the boy. I thought it wasn't any good; but in a minute the grinning