y.

"You may tell me, if you please," replied Mr Benny, himself somewhat
mystified, but playing for safety. "You may tell me, of course, that
'tis not Captain Hunken but another man altogether: as different from
Captain Hunken as you might be, for instance."

Cai started. He was not good at duplicity, but managed to parry the
suggestion. "We'll suppose it _is_ my friend, 'Bias," said he; "though
'Bias would be amused if he heard it."

"Very well--very well indeed!" Mr Benny laid down his pen, rubbed his
hands softly, and picked up the pen again. "Now we can get to work.
. . . '_Honoured Madam_'--Shall we begin with 'Honoured Madam'?
Or would you prefer something a trifle more--er--impassioned?
Perhaps we had better open--er--warily--if I may advise, and (so to
speak) warm to our subject. . . . There is an art, Captain Hocken, even
in composing and inditing a proposal of marriage. . . . 'Honoured
Madam--You will doubtless be surprised by the purport of this letter--'
Will she be surprised, by the way?"

"Cert'nly," Cai answered. "We agreed this is from 'Bias, remember."

"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: