"Our Uncle Willie in New York sends us Nursery Days every week. We like it immensely, and every one tries to get the first reading of it. "Tommy and the Huckleberry-tree" is a splendid story. Papa bought six copies of Nursery Days with that in it to send to my little cousins in England.
"JIMMIE CONWAY RHODES."
Others were more laudatory of Partington's story, some less so, but each demanded more of his work.
These written, Partington made arrangements to have them posted from the various towns wherein they were ostensibly written, and then, when they had been posted, he chuckled slightly and sat down to await developments.
It took a trifle over one week for developments to develop, and then they developed rapidly. Just eight days after his conception of this magnificent scheme the postman whistled at Partington's door and left this note:
OFFICE OF NURSERY DAYS,
NEW YORK, March 16, 1889.
"Richard Partington Smithers, Esq.:
"DEAR SIR,—Can you call upon me some afternoon this week? Yours truly,
THOMAS JACKSON TORPYHUE,