As I said, we were laughing merrily over this adventure when the postman arrived, and the Doctor-in-Law, without asking to be excused from the table, rushed out to meet him, and returned a few minutes later with his arms loaded with a number of little packages and one rather large box, which had arrived by Carter Paterson.
“Dear me, what a lot of letters,” remarked his Majesty.
“Yes. Wouldn’t you like to know what they are all about, eh?” inquired the Doctor-in-Law.
“Yes, I should,” admitted the Wallypug; while the faces of the others all expressed the same curiosity.
a strange and awful monster
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the Doctor-in-Law. “If you’ll all pay me fourpence halfpenny each, I will let you open them and see for yourselves.”
There was a little grumbling at this, but eventually the money changed hands, and, the breakfast things having been removed, the little packages were opened with great eagerness.
Besides a printed circular, each one contained some little article—a pencil case, a pen knife, a comb, a sample tin of knife polish, a card of revolving collar studs, and so on.
“Ah!” remarked the Doctor-in-Law complacently as these articles were spread about the table; “I told you that I expected to derive a princely revenue from my correspondence, and now I will explain to you how it is done. I observed a great number of advertisements in the daily papers, stating that ‘A handsome income could be earned without the slightest trouble or inconvenience, and particulars would be forwarded to any one sending six stamps and an addressed envelope’; so I sent off about twenty, and here is the result. I see by these circulars that I have only to sell two hundred of these little pencil cases at half-a-crown each in order to earn 1s. 6d. commission, and for every dozen tins of knife polish I sell, I shall be paid 1-½d., besides being able to earn 6d. a thousand by addressing envelopes for one firm, if I supply my own envelopes.”