esent moving Heaven and Earth to pass Bar Exam,
and my intimate connection with the distinguished Bayswater family of
the ALLBUTT-INNETTS, who were consumed with longing for free tickets to
an official _soiree_. I then described the transcendent charms of Miss
WEE-WEE, and my own ardent desire to obtain her grateful recognition by
procuring the open sesame for self and friends. Furthermore, I pointed
out that, as an official in the India Office, he was _in loco parentis_
to myself, and bound to indulge all my reasonable requests, and I
assured him that if he exhibited generosity on this occasion, the entire
ALLBUTT-INNETT family, self included, would ever pray on the crooked
hinges of knees for his temporal and spiritual welfare.

He heard me benignantly, but said he regretted that it was not in his
power to oblige me.

"You are not to suppose," I said, "that I am a native TOM-DICK or HARRY.
I am a B.A. of Calcutta University, and candidate for call to Bar. _In
additum_, I am the literary celebrity, being especially retained to jot
and tittle for the periodical of _Punch_."

Mr BREAKWATER assured me earnestly that he fully appreciated my many
distinguished claims, but that he was under an impossibility of granting
my petition for an invite to the annual summer _soiree_, owing to the
fact that aforesaid festivity was already the _fait accompli_.

"How is that?" I exclaimed. "Have I not read in the daily press of a
grand _durbar_ to be given shortly in honour of Hon'ble HUNG CHANG?"

"But that is at the Foreign Office," he objected; "we have no connection
with such a concern."

[Illustration: "PITCH IT STRONG, MY RESPECTABLE SIR!"]

"The Foreign Office would be better than nullity," I said. "I will tell
you what to do. Write me a letter to show to the head of the Foreign
Office. You can state that you have known me intimately for a long
time, and that I am deserving of patronage. Hint, for instance, that it
is impolitic to show favouritism to one Oriental (such as a Chinese)
rather than another, and that you will regard any kindness done to me as
the personal favour to yourself. Pitch it strong, my respectable Sir!"

He, however, protested that any recommendation from him would be a
_brutum fulmen_.

"You are too modest, honoured Sir!" I told him, seeing that flattery was
requisite; "but I am not the ignoramus of how highly your character and
virtues are esteemed, and I can assure you that you are not so
contemp