Page:The Yellow Book - 06.djvu/127

 coat, "You'll begin it now, won't you? There is really a book inside your head; it isn't a fairy tale you made up just for me, is it? And you'll make a great name, and they'll put your picture in the papers, and all about you, and I'll cut out all the pieces and make an album, like Sophy does with her notices. She had a lovely one in the Charing Cross Gazette. The young man who wrote it owed mother rent, and she let him off for getting it in. And then when your sons know you have really made the book—they don't believe in it," with a note of scorn—"they'll want to take you away, but you won't forget as how little Jeanet gave you the book to write it in, will you?"

The Captain blew his nose and wiped his glasses, and kissed the little maid, and patted her head, and called her his little comfort, and promised her a whole chapter to herself; and to-morrow he would begin—without fail, to-morrow. Then he invited Jeanet to supper, and they decided upon fried fish and baked potatoes, and Jeanet laid the table-cloth, and he put on his threadbare overcoat and she her hat, and they went out joyous as only children at heart can be. The Captain chaffed the busy stout women frying the pieces a golden brown, and insisted on carrying the basket. Jeanet was careful not to get re-roasted potatoes, and gave the old man a wise little lecture because he bade a rogue of a news-boy to keep the halfpenny change from an evening paper; and he bought her a bunch of ragged bronze-brown chrysanthemums, and she tried hard to see that they were prettier than the close magenta ones.

They supped merrily, and whilst she mixed his punch for him he unlocked an old workbox, and found her a little silver fish, with a waggling tail, that had once served the dear white lady as a tape-measure; and then she sat at his feet and he told her more wonderful stories of bygone days, but he lost the thread of his story