So, disguising my bashful confusion, I said, "I am awfully sorry that I took you, my dear old chap, for a common ordinary fellow; but remember the proverb, that 'appearances are deceitful,' and do not reveal a thin skin about a rather natural mistake." Mr BREAKWATER courteously entreated me not to mention the affair, but to state my business briefly. Accordingly I related how I was a native Bengalee student, at present moving Heaven and Earth to pass Bar Exam, and my intimate connection with the distinguished Bayswater family of the ALLBUTT-INNETTS, who were consumed with longing for free tickets to an official _soirée_. I then described the transcendent charms of Miss WEE-WEE, and my own ardent desire to obtain her grateful recognition by procuring the open sesame for self and friends. Furthermore, I pointed out that, as an official in the India Office, he was _in loco parentis_ to myself, and bound to indulge all my reasonable requests, and I assured him that if he exhibited generosity on this occasion, the entire ALLBUTT-INNETT family, self included, would ever pray on the crooked hinges of knees for his temporal and spiritual welfare. He heard me benignantly, but said he regretted that it was not in his power to oblige me. "You are not to suppose," I said, "that I am a native TOM-DICK or HARRY. I am a B.A. of Calcutta University, and candidate for call to Bar. _In additum_, I am the literary celebrity, being especially retained to jot and tittle for the periodical of _Punch_." Mr BREAKWATER assured me earnestly that he fully appreciated my many distinguished claims, but that he was under an impossibility of granting my petition for an invite to the annual summer _soirée_, owing to the fact that aforesaid festivity was already the _fait accompli_. "How is that?" I exclaimed. "Have I not read in the daily press of a grand _durbar_ to be given shortly in honour of Hon'ble HUNG CHANG?" "But that is at the Foreign Office," he objected; "we have no connection with such a concern." [Illustration: "PITCH IT STRONG, MY RESPECTABLE SIR!"] "The Foreign Office would be better than nullity," I said. "I will tell you what to do. Write me a letter to show to the head of the Foreign Office. You can state that you have known me intimately for a long time, and that I am deserving of patronage. Hint, for instance, that it is impolitic to show favouritism to one Oriental (such as a Chinese) rather than another, and that you will regard any kindness done to me as the personal favour to yourself. Pitch it strong, my respectable Sir!" He, however, protested that any recommendation from him would be a _brutum fulmen_.