nto the middle of the road, the door was thrown open and the
duet, louder than ever, streamed out into the street. Major Benjy
bounced out on to the threshold, and stumbled down the two steps that
led from the door.

"Tell you it was a worm-cast," he bellowed. "Think I don't know a
worm-cast when I see a worm-cast?"

Suddenly his tone changed: this was getting too near a quarrel.

"Well, good-night, old fellow," he said. "Jolly evening."

He turned and saw, veiled and indistinct in the mist, the female figure
in the roadway. Undying coquetry, as Mr. Stevenson so finely remarked,
awoke, for the topic preceding the worm-cast had been "the sex."

"Bless me," he crowed, "if there isn't an unprotected lady all 'lone
here in the dark, and lost in the fog. 'Llow me to 'scort you home,
madam. Lemme introduce myself and friend--Major Flint, that's me, and my
friend Captain Puffin."

He put up his hand and whispered an aside to Miss Mapp: "Revolutionized
the theory of navigation."

Major Benjy was certainly rather gay and rather indistinct, but his
polite gallantry could not fail to be attractive. It was naughty of him
to have said that he went to bed early on alternate nights, but
really.... Still, it might be better to slip away unrecognized, and,
thinking it would be nice to scriggle by him and disappear in the mist,
she made a tactical error in her scriggling, for she scriggled full into
the light that streamed from the open door where Captain Puffin was
standing.

He gave a shrill laugh.

"Why, it's Miss Mapp," he said in his high falsetto. "Blow me, if it
isn't our mutual friend Miss Mapp. What a 'strordinary coincidence."

Miss Mapp put on her most winning smile. To be dignified and at the same
time pleasant was the proper way to deal with this situation. Gentlemen
often had a glass of grog when they thought the ladies had gone
upstairs. That was how, for the moment, she summed things up.

"Good evening," she said. "I was just going down to the pillar-box to
post a letter," and she exhibited her envelope. But it dropped out of
her hand, and the Major picked it up for her.

"I'll post it for you," he said very pleasantly. "Save you the trouble.
Insist on it. Why, there's no stamp on it! Why, there's no address on
it! I say, Puffie, here's a letter with no address on it. Forgotten the
address, Miss Mapp? Think they'll remember it at the post office? Well,
that's one of the mos' comic things I ever came across.