On Wednesdays Philip wrote--or more usually typed--more letters, but none to ladies. On this day he addressed himself to gentlemen, tersely informing such that if they made search in the envelope they would find a cheque enclosed, "in aid of the most excellent object mentioned in your letter," which it would be a kindness to acknowledge in due course. Uncle Joseph used to sign these. This brings us round to Thursday again; and, as already indicated, this was Philip's field day. On Thursday morning one James Nimmo, the factotum of the establishment, used to arrive shortly after breakfast in a cab, from an excursion into regions unknown, with quite a budget of letters. They were all from ladies, and were replies to Philip's letters of Monday. Most of them contained cheques, chaperoned by lengthy screeds; some enclosed lengthy screeds but no cheques; while a few, written in a masculine hand, stated briefly that "If my wife is pestered in this fashion again," Yours Faithfully proposed to communicate with the police. Although these letters were all addressed to Philip, Uncle Joseph opened them himself, ticking off the cheques and postal orders and dictating the names and addresses of their senders to Philip, who posted them up in a big book. On Fridays Philip wrote acknowledging the letters. For a boy of fourteen he was a very fair stenographer, and could take down the sentences almost as quickly as Uncle Joseph could dictate them. His typing, too, was almost first-class, and he possessed the useful, if risky, accomplishment of being able to write two separate and distinct hands. Saturday was a particularly delightful day, for then Uncle Joseph and Philip put all business cares behind them and held high revel. Sometimes they went up the River; sometimes they went to Lords; and sometimes they took the train into the country and tramped over the Hog's Back or the South Downs. It was upon these occasions that Uncle Joseph would discourse upon Woman, and wonder, with Philip, why she had been sent into the world. "There appears to be no parallel to the female mind," Uncle Joseph would say, "in any of the works of nature. It seems almost incredible that God should invent such a wonderful piece of mechanism as Man--invent him for the express purpose of controlling and developing this marvellous world of ours--and then deliberately stultify his own work and handicap his own beautifully designed and perfectly balanced engines by linking them up with others which are conspicuous for nothing but bias and instability. What a world this might have been, Philip, if _all_ its inhabitants had been constructed upon a rational plan, instead of only one half! Why is it, I wonder?" Philip, who could not remember having spoken to a woman for ten years, except once or twice across a counter, would shake his head despondingly.