'Well, as for the identical words, I really, and I was tolerably excited, sir, and upon my honour, the identical words are rather difficult to....' He glanced at the horsewhip, and pricked by the sight of it to proceed, thought it good to soften the matter if possible. 'I don't quite recollect . . . I wrote off to you rather hastily. I think he said-- but Palmet was there.' 'Shrapnel spoke the words before Lord Palmet?' said Mr. Romfrey austerely. Captain Baskelett summoned Palmet to come near, and inquired of him what he had heard Shrapnel say, suggesting: 'He spoke of a handsome woman for a housekeeper, and all the world knew her character?' Mr. Romfrey cleared his throat. 'Or knew she had no character,' Cecil pursued in a fit of gratified spleen, in scorn of the woman. 'Don't you recollect his accent in pronouncing housekeeper?' The menacing thunder sounded from Mr. Romfrey. He was patient in appearance, and waited for Cecil's witness to corroborate the evidence. It happened (and here we are in one of the circles of small things producing great consequences, which have inspired diminutive philosophers with ironical visions of history and the littleness of man), it happened that Lord Palmet, the humanest of young aristocrats, well-disposed toward the entire world, especially to women, also to men in any way related to pretty women, had just lit a cigar, and it was a cigar that he had been recommended to try the flavour of; and though he, having his wits about him, was fully aware that shipboard is no good place for a trial of the delicacy of tobacco in the leaf, he had begun puffing and sniffing in a critical spirit, and scarcely knew for the moment what to decide as to this particular cigar. He remembered, however, Mr. Romfrey's objection to tobacco. Imagining that he saw the expression of a profound distaste in that gentleman's more than usually serious face, he hesitated between casting the cigar into the water and retaining it. He decided upon the latter course, and held the cigar behind his back, bowing to Mr. Romfrey at about a couple of yards distance, and saying to Cecil, 'Housekeeper; yes, I remember hearing housekeeper. I think so. Housekeeper? yes, oh yes.' 'And handsome housekeepers were doubtful characters,' Captain Baskelett prompted him. Palmet laughed out a single 'Ha!' that seemed to excuse him for lounging away to the forepart of the vessel, where he tugged at his fine specimen of a cigar to rekindle it, and discharged it with a wry grimace, so delicate is the flavour of that weed, and so adversely ever is it affected by a breeze and a moist atmosphere. He could then return undivided in his mind to Mr. Romfrey and Cecil, but the subject was not resumed in his presence. The Countess of Menai steamed into Bevisham to land Mr. Romfrey there. 'I can be out in the Channel any day; it is not every day that I see you,' she said, in support of her proposal to take him over.