"'What!' It was my turn to shout this time. 'Dick Whittington!' I cried.
"'Of course,' said Murkel; 'Dick Whittington, only done in the costume of Queen Anne's day instead of his own.'
"'Then it is all true,' I shouted. 'By Jove, what a fool I've been; I see it all now, every bit of it. Oh, Lal! Lal! how impossible you are to understand.' Of course, this was all so much Greek to Murkel, who hadn't the remotest idea what I was so excited about; but he was thoroughly convinced that I meant to jump at his offer, and he thought I was merely madder than usual when I told him that I wouldn't sell Dick Whittington for five thousand pounds if he offered it to me.
"Murkel replaced Dick Whittington regretfully upon the rickety table and sighed deeply.
"'I suppose,' he said, 'that some forms of mental derangement are inseparable from some writers. The annoying part of it is that I wanted this piece for my own cabinet. If I had bought it I should never have sold it again. Well, if you want money, you know where to get it, old chap.'
"'I do,' I replied, 'and I have as good as found it in an unexpected quarter.' I took up the MSS. of the new book, lying upon the rickety table actually in front of Dick Whittington.
"'I will prophesy to you,' I said, 'and although it is a second-hand sort of prophecy it is going to come true nevertheless. You see this manuscript; this is going to make the first lot of money.'
"Murkel looked at me curiously. Do what he would the poor chap could not rid his mind of the thought that I was mad, but I will say he was very patient with me.
"'Give me the introduction to your publisher friend, and I will bet you a dinner, or two dinners, he accepts this as a start, and most probably everything else I write afterwards.'
"'Of course,' debated Murkel, 'you are a very amazing person. I meet you one day and you swear that nobody ever wants anything you do, and is never likely to want any of your work again; and then a few days after, without rhyme or reason, you swear they will take everything, even the things you haven't written. I don't pretend to consider you at all sane, but I am prepared to tackle the publishers for you; and, by Jove, you are really eccentric enough to have done something really good, so you may be right. But I cannot and will not understand why you cannot take a hundred guineas down for that little Dick Whittington.'