“‘Us! then you’re the idiot who wrote about the Swallows!’ said I.
“‘Suppose I am,’ said he, blushing all over, ‘suppose I am.’
“‘Well, all I can say is, I’m precious glad the little Crisp isn’t guilty of it. “Two of ye do not a summer make,” indeed!’
“‘Well, they don’t,’ said he.
“‘I know they don’t,’ said I, half dead with laughing, ‘but you needn’t go and tell everybody.’
“‘I’m sure it’s just as interesting as “Cain and Abel”—’
“‘There now, we don’t want to hear any more about them,’ said I, ‘but I think we ought to send them both back to Miss Crisp, to give her her laugh against us too.’
“We did so; and I needn’t tell you she lets us have it whenever we get within twenty yards of her.
“Here’s a long digression, but it may amuse you; and you said you wanted something to read.
“Well, Waterford and I recovered in a few days from our first reverse, and decided to have another shot; and so we were rather glad of the quiet evening at the office to make our new attempts. We half thought of writing a piece between us, but decided we’d better go on our own hooks after all, as our styles were not yet broken in to one another. We agreed we had better this time both write on subjects we knew something about; Waterford accordingly selected ‘A Day in a Sub-Sub-Editor’s Life’ as a topic he really could claim to be familiar with; while I pitched upon ‘Early Rising,’ a branch of science in which I flatter myself, old man, you are not competent to tell me whether I excel or not. Half the battle was done when we had fixed on our subjects; so as soon as every one was gone we poked up the fire and made ourselves snug, and settled down to work.