‘You’re not romancing?’
‘I beg your pardon?’ said Oswald. ‘Drawing the long bow, I mean,’ said the Editor.
Oswald drew himself up, and said he wasn’t a liar.
The Editor only laughed, and said romancing and lying were not at all the same; only it was important to know what you were playing at. So Oswald accepted his apology, and went on.
‘We were hiding among the furze-bushes one day, and we saw him do it. He took off his collar, and he put on a clean one, and he threw the other among the furze-bushes. We picked it up afterwards, and it was a beastly paper one!’
‘Thank you,’ said the Editor, and he got up and put his hand in his pocket. ‘That’s well worth five shillings, and there they are. Would you like to see round the printing offices before you go home?’
I pocketed my five bob, and thanked him, and I said we should like it very much. He called another gentleman and said something we couldn’t hear. Then he said good-bye again; and all this time Noel hadn’t said a word. But now he said, ‘I’ve made a poem about you. It is called “Lines to a Noble Editor.” Shall I write it down?’
The Editor gave him the blue pencil, and he sat down at the Editor’s table and wrote. It was this, he told me afterwards as well as he could remember—
May Life’s choicest blessings be your lot
I think you ought to be very blest
For you are going to print my poems—
And you may have this one as well as the rest.
‘Thank you,’ said the Editor. ‘I don’t think I ever had a poem addressed to me before. I shall treasure it, I assure you.’