But Noël said, "Yes, I'll write it if you'll give me a pen and ink, and a sheet of paper and an envelope."
The boy said he'd better write by post. But Noël is a bit pig-headed; it's his worst fault. So he said—
"No, I'll write it now." So I backed him up by saying—
"Look at the price penny stamps are since the coal strike!"
So the boy grinned, and the man in the glass case gave us pen and paper, and Noel wrote. Oswald writes better than he does; but Noel would do it; and it took a very long time, and then it was inky.
"Dear Mr. Editor,—I want you to print my poetry and pay for it, and I am a friend of Mrs Leslie's; she is a poet too.
"Your affectionate friend,
"Noël Bastable."
He licked the envelope a good deal, so that that boy shouldn't read it going upstairs; and he wrote "Very private" outside, and gave the letter to the boy. I thought it wasn't any good; but in a minute the grinning boy came back, and he was quite respectful, and said—
"The Editor says, please will you step up?"
