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16 “Three large ones,” said Freddy; "a Ship, a Harlequin, and a Policeman, besides crackers and other unimportant trifles.”

“Very good,” said the fairy; “take these ornaments off the cake, and whenever you wish to obliterate any one deed of your life and all its consequences, eat one of those ornaments.”

“And the deed will be obliterated from my history?”

“Entirely,” said the fairy; “you will be as though it had never been committed.”

“I am very much obliged to you,” said Freddy.

“Not at all,” said the fairy, “I'm very glad to have had it in my power to assist you.”

And so saying she made her way back to the bon-bon box on the top of the cake, and became plaster-of-Paris once more.

Freddy scarcely knew what to make of his adventure. He was not so foolish as to believe in fairies, but still, without committing himself to a belief, there she was. As to his being able to obliterate an event of his life by eating one of the ornaments on the cake, why that was preposterous. He could understand that he might obliterate his life altogether by so doing, for they were coloured, for the most part, with arsenite of copper and chromate of lead, but any one event–it was out of the question.

As these ideas floated through his head he looked down the street, and saw a corporal's guard in the distance. It was marching straight towards his shop. A crisis was about to take place. It was too awful. To