Now, whether on account of the beetleheadedness of a domestic, or Baboo JALPANYBHOY'S incompetency in the art of equivocation, I am not to say--but the sequel of her inquiries was the unshakable conviction that I had not struck root in the habitation from which my letters were ostensibly addressed. And in a subsequently forwarded letter she did reproach me pathetically with my duplicity, and accused me of being a fickle--by which I was so unspeakably cut up that I abstained from the condescension of a rejoinder. Next I became the involuntary recipient of another letter in more intemperate style, menacing me that with a hook or a crook, she would dislodge me from the loophole in which I was snugly established, and that several able-bodied boarders were the hue of a full cry in pursuit. Since Hereford Road is in dangerous proximity to Ladbroke Grove, I was sitting tight in my apartments on receipt of this grave intelligence, with funk in my heart, and the Unknown hovering above me, when my young friend HOWARD ALLBUTT-INNETT, Esq., arrived with his bicycle, like a god on a machine, and perceiving the viridity of my countenance, inquired sympathetically what was up. At first, being mindful of the excessive liveliness with which he had bantered my residence in a boarding-house of such mediocre pretensions, I was naturally disinclined to reveal that I was in the plight of troth with the proprietress's daughter; but eventually I overcame my coyness, and uncovered the pretty kettle of fish of my _infandum dolorem_, and my ardent longing to hit upon some plan to extricate myself from the suffocating coils of such a Laocoon. "My dear old chap," he said kindly, after I had unfolded the last link of my tale of woe, "I will put you up in a dodge that will perform the trick. Don't see the young woman, or she will get round you with half a jiffy. Write to her that you are not worthy of a rap, and no more a Prince than I am!" Hearing his last words, I started, and did, like the ghost of _Hamlet_, Senior, "jump at this dead hour," being convinced that young HOWARD had found out (perhaps from Hon'ble CUMMERBUND) that my title was a bogus, and anticipating that, if he divulged the skeleton of my bare cupboard to his highly genteel parents, I should infallibly experience the crushing mortification of a chuck out. However, I hid the fox that was nibbling my vitals by inquiring, in a rather natural accent, what he meant by such a suggestion.