To which the Duke, greatly agitated, replied that he was unspeakably obliged for the caution, and requested Mr Bhosh to depart at once and remain an absentee for the future. Which our friend cheerfully undertook to perform, and, in taking leave of the Duchess, exhorted her, with an eloquence that moved all present, to abandon her frivolities and levities and adopt a deportment more becoming to her matronly exterior. The reader would naturally imagine that she would have been grateful for so friendly and well-meant a hint--but oh, dear! it was quite the reverse, for from a loving friend she was transformed into a bitter and most unscrupulous enemy, as we shall find in forthcoming chapters. Truly it is not possible to fathom the perversities of the feminine disposition! CHAPTER IV A KICK FROM A FRIENDLY FOOT She is a radiant damsel with features fair and fine; But since betrothed to Bosom's friend she never can be mine! _Original Poem by H. B. J. (unpublished)._ Mr Bhosh's bosom-friend, the Lord Jack Jolly, had kindly undertaken to officiate as his Palinurus and steer him safely from the Scylla to the Charybdis of the London Season, and one day Lord Jolly arrived at our hero's apartments as the bearer of an invite from his honble parent the Baronet, to partake of tiffin at their ancestral abode in Chepstow Villas, which Bindabun gratefully accepted. Arrived at the Jollies' sumptuous interior, a numerous retinue of pampered menials and gilded flunkies divested Mr Bhosh of his hat and umbrella and ushered him into the hall of audience. "Bhosh, my dear old pal," said Lord Jack, "I have news for you. I am engaged as a Benedict, and am shortly to celebrate matrimony with a young goodlooking female--the Princess Petunia Jones." "My lord," replied Mr Bhosh, "suffer me to hang around your patrician neck the floral garland of my humble congratulations." "My dear Bhosh," responded the youthful peer of the realm, "I regard you as more than a brother, and am confident that when my betrothed beholds your countenance, she will conceive for you a similar lively affection. But hush! here she comes to answer for herself.... Princess, permit me to present to you the best and finest friend I possess, Mr Bindabun Bhosh." Mr Bhosh modestly lowered his optics as he salaamed with inimitable grace, and it was not until he had resumed his perpendicular that he recognised in the Princess Jones the charming unknown whom he had last beheld engaged in repelling the assault of a distracted cow! Their eyes were no sooner crossed than he knew that she regarded him as her deliverer, and was consumed by the most ardent affection for him. But Mr Bhosh repressed himself with heroic magnanimity, for he reflected that she was the affianced of his dearest friend and that it was contrary to _bon ton_ to poach another's jam.