"Very well; let's have a sample. . . . You won't find it on the mantelpiece," for 'Bias had turned about and was picking up his pipe again with great deliberation.

"I've no wish to hurt your feelin's undooly," said he, eyeing the bowl for a moment and tapping out the ashes into his palm.

"Don't mind _me!_"

"But I _do_ mind ye. . . . See here now, Cai," he resumed after a short pause, "we've known one another--let me see--how long?"

"Seventeen years, come the twenty-first of November next," quickly responded Cai, fumbling at the tobacco-jar. "In Rotterdam, if you'll remember--our vessels lyin' alongside. 'Hullo!' says you."

"Far as I remember, you asked me aboard."

"Yes. 'Hullo!' says you; 'that's a pretty-lookin' craft o' your'n.'

'She'll work in' an' out o' most places,' says I. 'Speedy too, I reckon,' says you, 'for a hard-wood ship; though a bit fine forra'd.

A wet boat, I doubt?' 'Not a bit,' says I; 'that's a mistake strangers are apt to make about the _Hannah Hoo_. Like to step aboard an' cast a look over her fittin's? I can show ye something in the way of teak panels,' says I: and you came. That's how it began," wound up Cai, staring hard at the tobacco-jar, for--to tell the truth--a faint mist obscured his vision.

'Bias, too, was staring hard, down upon the hearth-rug between his feet.

"Ay; an' from that day to this never a question atween us we couldn'

settle by the toss of a coin." He continued to stare down gloomily.

"Tossin' won't help us, not in this case," he added.

"It wouldn't be respectful."

"It wouldn't be fair, neither. . . . You may talk as you please, Cai, but the widow favours me."

"I asked ye for proofs just now, if you remember."

"So you did. And if you remember I asked you for the same, not two minutes afore. We can't give 'em, neither of us: and, if we could, why--as you said a moment since--'twouldn't be respectful. Let's play fair then, d.a.m.n it!"

"Certainly," agreed Cai, striking a match and holding it to his pipe.

(But his hand shook.) "That's if you'll suggest how."

'Bias mused for a s.p.a.ce. "Very well," said he at length; "then I'll suggest that we both sit down and write her a letter; post the letters together, and let the best man win."

"Couldn't be fairer," agreed Cai, after a moment's reflection.

"When I said the best man," 'Bias corrected himself, "I meant no more than to say the man she fancies. No reflection intended on you."

"Nor on yourself, maybe?" hinted Cai, with a last faint touch of exasperation. It faded, and--on an impulse of generosity following on a bright inspiration which had on the instant occurred to him-- he suggested, "If you like, we'll show one another the letters before we post 'em?"

"That's as you choose," answered 'Bias. "Or afterwards, if you like-- I shall keep a rough copy."

Now this was said with suspicious alacrity: for Cai was admittedly the better scholar and, as a rule, revised 'Bias's infrequent business letters and corrected their faults of spelling. But--dazzled as he was by his own sudden and brilliant idea--no suspicion occurred to him.

"It's a bargain, then?"

"It's a bargain."

They did not shake hands upon it. Their friendship had always been sincere enough to dispense with all formalities of friendship; they would not have shaken hands on meeting (say) after a twenty years'

separation. They looked one another in the eyes, just for an instant, and they both nodded.

"Cribbage to-night?" asked 'Bias.

"If 'tisn't too late," answered Cai.

He pulled out his watch, whilst 'Bias turned about to the mantel-shelf and the clock his bulk had been hiding.

"Nine-thirty," announced Cai.

"Almost to a tick," agreed 'Bias. "'Stonishing what good time we've kept ever since we set this clock."

"'Stonishing," Cai a.s.sented.

They played two games of cribbage and retired to bed. As he undressed Cai remembered his omission to warn 'Bias explicitly of what--according to Mrs Bowldler--the parrot was capable. The warning had been once or twice on the tip of his tongue during the early part of the conversation: but always (as he remembered) he had been interrupted.

"I'll warn him after breakfast to-morrow," said Cai to himself magnanimously, as he arose from his prayers. "Poor old 'Bias--what a good fellow it is, after all!"

He slept soundly, and was awakened next morning by Palmerston with the information, "Breakfast in the adjoining to-day, sir!"--this and "We are at home for breakfast" being the alternative formulae invented by Mrs Bowldler.

"And Captain Hunken requests of you not to wait," added Palmerston, again repeating what Mrs Bowldler had imparted.

"Is he lying late to-day?" asked Cai.

"He have a-gone out for an early ramble," answered Palmerston stolidly.

"Ah! to clear his brain--poor old 'Bias!" said Cai to himself, and thought no more about it. Nor did it occur to his mind that, overnight, Mrs Bowldler had point-blank refused to lay another meal in the room inhabited by the parrot, until, descending to 'Bias's parlour and becoming aware, as he lifted the teapot, that the room was brighter and sunnier than usual, he cast a glance toward the window. The parrot-cage no longer darkened it. Parrot and cage, in fact, were gone.

He turned sternly upon Mrs Bowldler. But Mrs Bowldler, setting down a dish of poached eggs, had noted his glance and antic.i.p.ated his question.

"Which," said she, "I am obliged to you, sir, and prompter Captain Hunken could not have behaved. A nod, as they say, is as good as a wink to a blind horse; but Captain Hunken, being neither blind nor a horse, and anything so vulgar as winking out of the question, it may not altogether apply, though the result is the same."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LETTERS.

Having breakfasted, read his newspaper, and smoked his pipe (and still no sign of the missing 'Bias), Cai brushed his hat and set forth to pay a call on Mr Peter Benny.

This Mr Peter Benny--father of Mr Shake Benny, whose acquaintance we have already made--was a white-haired little man who had known many cares in life, but had preserved through them all a pa.s.sionate devotion to literature and an entirely simple heart: and these two had made life romantic for him, albeit his cares had been the very ordinary ones of a poor clerk with a long family of boys and girls, all of whom--his wife aiding--he had brought up to fear the Lord and seen fairly started in life. Towards the close of the struggle Fortune had chosen to smile, rewarding him with the stewardship of Damelioc, an estate lying beside the river some miles above Troy. This was a fine exchange against a beggarly clerkship, even for a man so honest as Peter Benny. But he did not hold it long. On the death of his wife, which happened in the fifth year of their prosperity, he had chosen to retire on a small pension, to inhabit again (but alone) the waterside cottage which in old days the children had filled to overflowing, and to potter at literary composition in the wooden outhouse where he had been used, after office hours, to eke out his 52 pounds salary by composing letters for seamen.

He retained his methodical habits, and Cai found him already at work in the outhouse, and thoroughly enjoying a task which might have daunted one of less boyish confidence. He was, in fact, recasting the 'Fasti'

of Ovid into English verse, using for that purpose a spirited, if literal, prose translation (published by Mr Bohn) in default of the original, from which his ignorance of the Latin language precluded him.

For a taste:--

"What sea, what land, knows not Arion's fame!