“Oh! that’s of course,” declared Sam, with considerable vigour. “Exactly, that’s, as you say, of course. So I’ve a good figure, a fair face, an intelligent mind, the manners of a duchess. I never met a duchess, but I presume the comparison is meant as complimentary; all these, and, to boot, a heart that’s, as you say, of course. Now, pray, Mr. Storth, what do you offer in exchange for all this?” “What do I offer? I? Why, surely you can’t misunderstand me, you cannot fail to know that all this time I’ve been offering MYSELF!” “I see ‘myself,’ in large capitals, I suppose.” Sam Storth looked, as he doubtless felt, somewhat nonplussed by this reception of what he assured himself was an uncommonly handsome offer. “Yourself!” continued the object of his well-regulated affections; “h’m, yourself. That’s so comprehensive as to be a trifling vague. You were good enough to enter into detailed particulars, quite a bill of quantities, or particular invoice of what should be included in the self, the other self besides yourself, on which you would deign to lavish the treasures of your heart. Cannot you be a little more precise as to what is included in YOURSELF? What’s to be the _quid pro quo_ for my good figure, my fair face, my excellent understanding and my manners of a duchess? Is it to be _par example your_ good figure?” Now, it has been said that Mr. Storth, however excellent a lawyer, was no Adonis. He winced and sate silent. “_Your_ fair face?” Again Mr. Storth winced and found no words. “_Your_ excellent understanding? _Your_ manners? I suppose they should be ducal to match mine?” “Oh, hang it all, Miss Wrigley! I think you’re piling it on a bit too thick. I don’t set up for a beauty, though I’ve had my successes,” Sam added, in parenthesis. “So I understand. In the _coulisses_ of the music-hall.” “And I don’t set up for a saint. But that’s all over now. But you’ve beauty and goodness enough for the pair of us, and if I’m neither an Adonis nor a saint I’m not generally looked upon as a fool. I’m a gentleman by profession, I’ve a good business, and I’m making enough to keep a wife, and if that isn’t good enough, why, I can’t help it, and there’s an end on’t.” “Ah! now you’re talking sense. You’re making, you say, a good income. But as what? As the junior partner of Mr. Edward Beaumont; the man who does the leavings of his work, takes the cases he doesn’t think important enough to attend to himself, and does the drudgery he thinks beneath his high and mightiness.” “Oh, damn Edward Beaumont!” broke in Storth, hotly.