sort nowadays? The only ones I ever see mentioned in the papers are about married couples who find life grey, and can’t stick each other at any price.”
“Yes, sir, there are a great many, neglected by the reviewers but widely read. You have never encountered All for Love , by Rosie M. Banks?”
“No.”
“Nor A Red, Red Summer Rose , by the same author?”
“No.”
“I have an aunt, sir, who owns an almost complete set of Rosie M. Banks’. I could easily borrow as many volumes as young Mr. Little might require. They make very light, attractive reading.”
“Well, it’s worth trying.”
“I should certainly recommend the scheme, sir.”
“All right, then. Toddle round to your aunt’s tomorrow and grab a couple of the fruitiest. We can but have a dash at it.”
“Precisely, sir.”
Bingo reported three days later that Rosie M. Banks was the goods and beyond a question the stuff to give the troops. Old Little had jibbed somewhat at first at the proposed change of literary diet, he not being much of a lad for fiction and having stuck hitherto exclusively to the heavier monthly reviews; but Bingo had got chapter one of “All for Love” past his guard before he knew what was happening, and after that there was nothing to it. Since then they had finished A Red, Red Summer Rose , Madcap Myrtle and Only a Factory Girl , and