e," 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 anticipated 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 passionate 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