"What does it mean, Uncle Joseph?" asked Philip, carefully copying out the tag.
"It means, roughly, that a man with patches on his trousers cannot afford to ask for much. Now to wind up:—
"So I pray you—not of your charity, but of your good-comradeship—to send me a little work to do. The remuneration I leave to you. I am too destitute—and perhaps too proud—to drive a bargain.
Yours fraternally,
Arthur Brown.
"Put 'Late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge.' You can add the Islington address when James Nimmo has fixed it up. Then type it out. Do about seventy copies. I have been going through the lady members of the Authors' Society, and have picked out most of its female geniuses. Now for next week's list for the Kind Young Hearts! Three or four of the old items can stand—particularly Papodoodlekos: he is a very lucrative old gentleman—but the others must come out. I shall not send the revised list, though, to your friend—what was that humourist's name?"
"Mr. Julius Mablethorpe," said Philip.
"That's the man. Now I think of it, I have read some novels by him. I shall not send him the revised list, but I am grateful to him, all the same, for one or two useful hints. That scheme for sending children to the seaside ought not to have gone in at this time of year. The foolishness of the average female philanthropist is so stupendous that one grows careless. Instead, we will substitute a League of Playground Helpers—a band of interfering young women whose primary act of officiousness shall be to invade the East End and instruct slum-children in the art of playing games scientifically and educatively. There's a great rage for that sort of thing just now, though how one can make a mud-pie, or play hop-scotch, or throw kittens into a canal scientifically and educatively beats me. Still, the idea is good for a few postal orders."
The list was completed, to a running accompaniment of this sort, and Philip began to put away his writing materials.
Uncle Joseph glanced at the clock.
"There is just time for one more letter before dinner," he said. "I am going to ring the changes on Tommy Smith a trifle. Next week, I think, instead of writing to grown-ups, he must send an ill-spelt but touching appeal to some little girls. About a dozen will do—the children of wealthy or titled widows. The difficulty will be to get hold of the brats' Christian names. However, we will work it somehow. We might say 'Little Miss So-and-So,' or, 'The Little Girl who lives with Mrs. So-and-So.' Either will look childish and pretty. Just take this down, and we'll see how it sounds:—
"Dear Little Girl,—I am only a little boy about your age, and my Daddy does not know I am writing to you.