"Get what off my chest?" enquired Tim, with a great appearance of surprise. "This great secret. Cough it up! Who is the lady?" One of Philip's greatest virtues in the eyes of Timothy was that he never, under any circumstances, ended that particular question with "this time." But he was genuinely surprised at Philip's penetration. "Great Scott! It must be written all over me if you can spot it, old Bartimæus!" he said, not altogether displeased. "Yes, you are right. It has happened at last." "What?" "_It!_ I'm in love." "It comes to us all, sooner or later," remarked Philip tactfully. "And I am going," announced Tim with great firmness, "to bring it off this very night." Philip glanced at the clock. "Quarter to ten," he said. "A bit late to begin a job of that magnitude to-night, isn't it? Are you going to apply personally, or by letter?" "What's that?" enquired Timothy, emerging from a rapturous reverie. Philip repeated the question. "Letter?" exclaimed Tim with infinite scorn--"a letter? Write? Write a letter? My sainted aunt, _write_?" He gazed indignantly upon the automaton before him that called itself a man. "My dear old relic of the Stone Age--" "In the Stone Age," observed the relic, "they couldn't write." Timothy made reference to the Stone Age which was neither seemly nor relevant, and continued:-- "Do you expect me to sit down and write--write to _her_--upon such a subject as that? Write--with a three-and-nine-penny fountain pen, on Silurian notepaper at a shilling a packet? It's not _done_, dear old soul; it's simply not _done_!" Timothy, carefully hitching up the knees of his faultlessly creased trousers, lowered himself on to the sofa, the picture of reproachful scorn. "If it takes you that way," replied the unruffled Philip, "why not use cream-laid vellum and a gold nib?" Timothy merely made an alarming noise at the back of his neck. "Or a typewriter, with the loud pedal down and all the stops out?" pursued the facetious Philip. "Phil," announced Timothy, with a pathetic attempt to look extremely stern and dignified, "let me tell you that I am in no mood for this sort of thing. Dry up, man; dry up! Do you think I could get all I have to say upon this occasion within the limits of an ordinary letter?" "Under the present postal regulations," explained Philip, "you can send four ounces for a penny. In fact, if you leave the ends open--" He caught sight of Tim's tragic face, and concluded his entertainment. "Sorry, old chap!" he remarked, suddenly contrite. "I don't know why one should try to pull a man's leg on these occasions. God knows, the business is serious enough." "Thanks," said Timothy gratefully. "To tell you the truth, I am feeling pretty bad about it. You don't know what it is to be hard hit by a woman, Phil." "No. I should have remembered that," said Philip apologetically.