“Hawbury, my boy,” said he again.

“All right.”

“You remember the time when I got that bullet in Uruguay?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I had a shot to-day.”

“A shot!  The deuce you had.  Cool, too.  Any of those confounded bandits about?  I thought that was all rot.”

“It wasn’t a real shot; only figurative.”

“Figurative!”

“Yes; it was a—­a girl.”

“By Jove!” cried Hawbury, starting up from an easy posture which he had secured for himself after fifteen minutes shifting and changing.  “A girl!  You, Dacres, spooney!  A fellow like you, and a girl!  By Jove!”

Hawbury fell back again, and appeared to be vainly trying to grapple with the thought.

Dacres put his cigar between his lips again, and gave one or two puffs at it, but it had gone out.  He pitched it out of the window, and struck his hand heavily on the arm of his chair.

“Yes, Hawbury, a girl; and spooney, too—­as spooney as blazes; but I’ll swear there isn’t such another girl upon the whole face of the earth; and when you bear in mind the fact that my observation, with extended view, has surveyed mankind from China to Peru, you’ll be able to appreciate the value of my statement.”

“All right, old man; and now for the adventure.”

“The adventure?  Well, you see, I started for a ride.  Had a misty idea of going to Sorrento, and was jogging along among a million pigs or so at Portici, when I overtook a carriage that was going slowly along.  There were three ladies in it.  The backs of two of them were turned toward me, and I afterward saw that one was old—­no doubt the chaperon—­and the other was young.  But the third lady, Hawbury—­Well, it’s enough to say that I, who have seen all women in all lands, have never seen any thing like her.  She was on the front seat, with her face turned toward me.  She was small, a perfect blonde; hair short and curling; a round, girlish face; dimpled cheeks, and little mouth.  Her eyes were large and blue; and, as she looked at me, I saw such a bewitching innocence, such plaintive entreaty, such pathetic trust, such helpless, childlike—­I’ll be hanged if I can find words to express what I want to say.  The English language doesn’t contain them.”

“Do it in Latin, then, or else skip the whole description.  All the same.  I know the whole story by heart.  Love’s young dream, and all that sort of thing, you know.”

“Well,” continued Dacres, “there was something so confoundedly bewitching in the little girl’s face that I found myself keeping on at a slow pace in the rear of the carriage, and feasting on her looks.  Of course I wasn’t rude about it or demonstrative.”

“Oh, of course.  No demonstration.  It’s nothing to ride behind a carriage for several hours, and ‘feast’ one’s self on a pretty girl’s looks!  But go on, old man.”

“Oh, I managed it without giving offense.  You see, there was such a beastly lot of pigs, peasants, cows, dirty children, lazaroni, and all that sort of thing, that it was simply impossible to go any faster; so you see I was compelled to ride behind.  Sometimes, indeed, I fell a good distance back.”