but the poor fellow 'd like a clack, I can see."

It jumped to his tongue to bid her fetch and pass it in to him under
the door. The outside of a letter would not tell her much, and
anyhow would excite less curiosity than his own corporal envelope,
begrimed as it was just now with dust and plaster and cobwebs.
But the end of her message alarmed him with misgivings more serious.
"Why should Lippity-Libby want a clack with him? . . . Just for
gossip's sake?--or to convey a warning?" Lippity-Libby knew, or
averred that he knew, the author of yesterday's anonymous
letter. . . .

"Tell him I'll be out in a moment!"

Nicky-Nan beat his hands together softly to rid them of the worst of
the plaster, then smoothed them briskly down his chest in a hasty
effort to remove the cobwebs that clung there. The result--two
damning smears on the front of his shirt--was discouraging.

He opened the door with great caution, peered out into the passage,
and found to his great relief that Mrs Penhaligon, that discreet
woman, had withdrawn to her own premises.

He would have reconnoitred farther, but in the porch at the end of
the passage Lippity-Libby stood in plain view, with the street full
of sunshine behind him. So Nicky-Nan contented himself with closing
the door carefully and hasping it.

"If," began Lippity-Libby, "you go on gettin' letters at the rate o'
one a day, there's only two ways to it. Either you'll practise