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by William Fryer Harvey

NE THING is certain: Arthur ought never to have sent Janey the doll.

It came about like this.

He wrote us one of his absurd letters from a place in Africa, where he had been helping to put down a native rising. It was embellished as usual with lively pen-and-ink sketches of his Hack soldiers (who seemed to bear an extraordinary likeness to Christy Minstrels), and in a postscript contained the information that he was sending Janey a little black doll he had discovered in a deserted hut.

The doll appeared a fortnight later, wrapped up in a year-old engineering supplement of The Times, tied together with three knotted pieces of string. The stamps I put by for my three-year-old nephew, until the time arrived when he would be able to appreciate their value.

Janey was disappointed, and I do not wonder at it. She had been looking forward to the arrival of this new member of her family, all the more eagerly because Cicely White had been unbearably conceited about a doll her godmother had sent from Paris. The little African, instead of having a neatly painted trunk containing an elaborate wardrobe, appeared on the removal of his paper covering in a state of absolute nudity. I think Janey