"Yes, yes. . . . She will like it to be supposed that she's surprised, any way. All ladies do. '_--as by the communication I find myself impelled to make to you._' I word it thus to suggest that you--that Captain Hunken, rather--cannot help himself: that the lady has made, in the most literal sense, a conquest. A feeling of triumph, sir, is in the female breast, whether of maiden or widow, inseparably connected with the receipt of such a communication. Without asking Captain Hunken's leave--eh?--we will flatter that feeling a little--and portray him as the victim of this particular lady's bow and spear. A figurative expression." "Oh!" said Cai, who had begun to stare. "Well, go on." "'_Surprised, I say; yet not (I hope) affronted; in any event not unwilling to pardon, recognising that these words flow from the dictates of an emotion which, while in itself honourable, is in another sense notoriously no respecter of persons. Love, Honoured Madam, has its votaries as well as its victims. I have never accounted myself, nor have I been accounted, in the former category_--'" "What's a category?" asked Cai. Mr Benny scratched out the word. "We will substitute 'case,'" said he, "and save Captain Hunken the trouble of an explanation. '_I am no longer--you will have detected it, so why should I pretend?--in the first flush of youth: no passionate boy_'--We are talking of Captain Hunken, remember." Cai nodded. "It's true as gospel, Mr Benny. But you have a wonderful way o' putting things." In this way--Mr Benny scribbling, erasing, purring over a phrase and anon declaiming it--Cai venturing a question here and there, but always apologetically, with a sense of being carried off his feet and swept into deep waters--in half an hour the letter was composed. It was not at all the letter Cai had expected. It threw up his suit into a high romantic light in which he scarcely recognised it or himself. But he felt it to be extremely effective. His conscience pricked him a little, as in imagination he saw 'Bias with head aslant and elbows sprawling, inking himself to the wrists in literary effort. Poor 'Bias! But "all's fair in love and war." To his mild astonishment Mr Benny declined a fee. "If, sir, you will be good enough to accept it, as between friends?" the little man suggested timidly. "You have helped me to pass a very pleasant morning: and it will be--shall I say?--something of a bond between us if, in the event, our joint composition should prove to have been instrumental in forwarding--er--Captain Hunken's suit." Cai hesitated. At that moment he would have preferred conferring a benefit to receiving one. His conscience wanted a small salve. Yet to refuse would hurt Mr Benny's feelings.