I did it delicately and in a most conciliatory manner.
"I was thinking, old man, as Alice is the heroine and you're her brother, I might--don't you know--perhaps you'd like if--well, what I mean to say is, perhaps I'd better do the gush, when it comes to that." Happily Harry was scarcely awake, and did not take in all my meaning.
"All serene," said he, "we'll have as little of that as we can." "I mean I think you'd do the parts about the villain and that sort of thing better--don't you ?" But as Harry was asleep again I had to take silence for consent.
The day that followed was an anxious one.

It is easy enough to get your characters, but it is awful having to fix their names.

And it is simple work getting a plot, compared with the agony of dividing it up into forty chapters! This was the task before us to-day, and we retired as before to the pier-head with pencils and paper, in order to do it beyond the sound of Aunt Sarah's voice.
We endured agonies over the names.

The hero's name should naturally have been a judicious combination of the names of the two fellows we had in our minds' eyes.

But neither "Sydrey Sproutock" nor "Hardney Hulltels" exactly pleased us.