Albert-next-door only wrote one chapter of the serial story, but he could have done some more if he had wanted to. He could not write out any of the things because he cannot spell. He says he can, but it takes him such a long time he might just as well not be able. There are one or two things more. I am sick of it, but Dora says she will write them in.
LEGAL ANSWER WANTED. A quantity of excellent string is offered if you know whether there really is a law passed about not buying gunpowder under thirteen.—DICKY.
The price of this paper is one shilling each, and sixpence extra for the picture of the Malabar going down with all hands. If we sell one hundred copies we will write another paper.
* * *
And so we would have done, but we never did. Albert-next-door’s uncle gave us two shillings, that was all. You can’t restore fallen fortunes with two shillings!
CHAPTER 9. THE G. B.
Being editors is not the best way to wealth. We all feel this now, and highwaymen are not respected any more like they used to be.
I am sure we had tried our best to restore our fallen fortunes. We felt their fall very much, because we knew the Bastables had been rich once. Dora and Oswald can remember when Father was always bringing nice things home from London, and there used to be turkeys and geese and wine and cigars come by the carrier at Christmas-time, and boxes of candied fruit and French plums in ornamental boxes with silk and velvet and gilding on them. They were called prunes, but the prunes you buy at the grocer’s are quite different. But now there is seldom anything nice brought from London, and the turkey and the prune people have forgotten Father’s address.
‘How can we restore those beastly fallen fortunes?’ said Oswald. ‘We’ve tried digging and writing and princesses and being editors.’