poker reposes in the fender.  It is a very ponderous poker of unusual size and the commonest appearance, but with a massive knob at the upper end which was wont to project far and high above the hearth.  It was to this seat that Slyboots elevated himself by his own choice, and became the Kitchen Crow.  Here he spent hours watching the cook, and taking tit-bits behind her back.  He ate what he could (more, I fear, than he ought), and hid the rest in holes and corners.  The genial neighbourhood of the oven caused him no inconvenience.  His glossy coat, being already as black as a coal, was not damaged by a certain grimeyness which is undoubtedly characteristic of the (late) armourer’s shop, of which the chimney is an inveterate smoker.  Companies of his relatives constantly enter the camp by ways over which the sentries have no control (the Balloon Brigade being not yet even in the clouds); but Slyboots showed no disposition to join them.  They flaunt and forage in the Lines, they inspect the ashpits and cookhouses, they wheel and manoeuvre on the parades, but Slyboots sat serene upon his poker.  He had a cookhouse all to himself....  He died.  We must all die; but we need not all die of repletion, which I fear, was his case.  He buried his last meal between two bricks in the kitchen floor, and covered it very tidily with a bit of newspaper.  The poker is vacant.  Sir, I was bred to the sword and not to the pen, but I have a foolish desire for literary fame.  I should be better pleased to be in print than to be promoted—­for that matter one seems as near as the other—­and my wife agrees with me.  She is of a literary turn, and has helped me in the composition of this, but we both fear that the story having no moral you will not admit it into your Owlhoots.  But if your wisdom could supply this, or your kindness overlook the defect, it would afford great consolation to a bereaved family to have printed a biography of the dear deceased.  For we were greatly attached to him, though he preferred the cook.  I can at any rate give you my word as a man of honour that these incidents are true, though, out of soldierly modesty, I will not trouble you with my name, but with much respect subscribe myself by that of

“SLYBOOTS.”

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The gallant officer is too modest.  This biography is not only true but brief, and these are rare merits in a memoir.  As to the moral—­it is not far to seek.  Dear children, for whom I hoot! avoid greediness.  If Slyboots had eaten tit-bits in moderation, he might be sitting on the poker to this day.  I have great pleasure in making his brief career public to the satisfaction of his gallant friend, and I should be glad to hear that the latter had got his step by the same post as his Owlhoot.

The second letter is much farther from literary excellence than the first.  I fear this little boy plays truant from school as well as taking apples which do not belong to him.  It is high time that he learnt to spell, and also to observe the difference between meum and tuum.  From not being well grounded on these two points, many boys have lost good situations in life when they grew up to be men.