"You can sharpen lead-pencils, can't you?"
"I could when I was at the Naval Academy," was the modest reply. In a moment Trixy's hand and eyes and head and tongue were working in unison, after the manner of beginners at letter-writing, while the Admiral, standing a little apart, pretended to write something in a memorandum book, but really made a sketch, to be presented to Trif, of the little correspondent as she knelt upon the piazza floor and used a chair as a desk.
"Writin's dreadful hard work," said Trixy, after several moments of effort. "I do wish that mamma—oh, say, Admiral, you can write, can't you? Of course you can—I see you doin' it now. Won't you please finish this letter for me if I tell you what to say? That's the way mamma writes 'em for me—she begun this one. If you do it you needn't pay me five cents the next time my well's the best of the lot, and I guess it's goin' to be the best to-day. Is it a bargain?"
"But, Trixy," replied the Admiral, "I question the propriety of hearing other peoples' family affairs."
"Oh, I don't write no family affairs. This is only a letter to papa."
"Your logic, my dear, is as faultless as your grammar. Still, I'll be your clerk for a few moments."
"All right; I'm very much obliged. First, though, you'd better begin and read what's already wrote, 'cause it's so long since mamma began this letter for me that I can't remember what I told her to say."
"H'm—let me see," said the Admiral, adjusting his glasses. "'Dear Old Papa'——"
"Go on."
The Admiral, who, like most men of affairs, had acquired a way of reading a page at a glance, suddenly looked at Trixy in astonishment. Then he re-read the letter, and said, with a twinkle of his eyes: