Years and years ago, before Phil was born,--indeed, before mamma and
papa were ever married,--papa began to write a book, and it is not yet
finished, though there are pages and pages of it. Of course it is _very_
deep and _very_ clever, for papa is a great scholar. Max Derwent says
that if papa would only finish the book he thinks he knows of a
publisher who would accept it at once; and that would be a great help
to us, for papa has lost a lot of money this year, and we have to be
_very_ economical. That is the reason Fee can't go to college as well as
Phil; papa explained this to the boys that day in the study, after Jack
had been put out. Dear Jack! he is such a gentle, old-fashioned little
fellow, it really seems as if he ought to have been the girl, and Betty
the boy.
But, for all that Max said, papa can't seem to get to the end of his
work; he writes and re-writes, and keeps making changes all the time.
Sometimes I have wondered if he has worked over it so long that he hates
to part with it. The title of this great piece of work is "The History
of Some Ancient Peoples," or something very like that,--it's about
the Egyptians and Phoenicians and Chaldeans; but among ourselves we
children call it the Fetich.
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