I went with Noel, because I am the eldest, and he is not old enough to go to London by himself. Dicky said poetry was rot—and he was glad he hadn’t got to make a fool of himself. That was because there was not enough money for him to go with us. H. O. couldn’t come either, but he came to the station to see us off, and waved his cap and called out ‘Good hunting!’ as the train started.
There was a lady in spectacles in the corner. She was writing with a pencil on the edges of long strips of paper that had print all down them. When the train started she asked—
‘What was that he said?’
So Oswald answered—
‘It was “Good hunting”—it’s out of the Jungle Book!’ ‘That’s very pleasant to hear,’ the lady said; ‘I am very pleased to meet people who know their Jungle Book. And where are you off to—the Zoological Gardens to look for Bagheera?’
We were pleased, too, to meet some one who knew the Jungle Book.
So Oswald said—
‘We are going to restore the fallen fortunes of the House of Bastable—and we have all thought of different ways—and we’re going to try them all. Noel’s way is poetry. I suppose great poets get paid?’
The lady laughed—she was awfully jolly—and said she was a sort of poet, too, and the long strips of paper were the proofs of her new book of stories. Because before a book is made into a real book with pages and a cover, they sometimes print it all on strips of paper, and the writer make marks on it with a pencil to show the printers what idiots they are not to understand what a writer means to have printed.
We told her all about digging for treasure, and what we meant to do. Then she asked to see Noel’s poetry—and he said he didn’t like—so she said, ‘Look here—if you’ll show me yours I’ll show you some of mine.’ So he agreed.