"Nora," I cried, "I've won a hundred pounds!"
She was lying reading in bed, and was so engrossed in her book that she did not catch what I said. She grumbled.
"I wish you wouldn't come interrupting me like that; especially as I've just got to where the hero is killing his second wife."
"Bother his second wife! and bother the hero too! Look at that!" I held out before her the editor's letter and the cheque. "Seventy-two times you've tried, at least, you said you had; and I've only tried once. And the very first time I've won!"
"What are you talking about?"
"If you'll come to Dick's room I'll tell you all about it."
Off I raced to Dick's room, calling out to Con and Jack and Jim as I passed. Presently the whole family were gathered about Dick's bed. Nora had put on a dressing-gown, but the three younger boys were just as they had got out of the sheets.
"Well," said Dick, when he had turned the cheque over and over and over, and held it up to the light to see if it was a forgery, "some rum things do happen, and those who deserve least get most."
"I always have thought," observed Nora, "that those prize competitions were frauds, and now I know it."
Jack was more sympathetic--or he meant to be.