“And nothing to be ashamed of in that, Captain Hocken!”

    ’The sea, the sea, the open sea—­
    The blue, the fresh, the ever free.’

“I daresay you’ve often felt like that about it, as did the late Barry Cornwall, otherwise Bryan Waller Procter, whose daughter, the gifted Adelaide Anne Procter, prior to her premature decease, composed ‘The Lost Chord,’ everywhere so popular as a cornet solo.  It is one of the curiosities of literature,” went on Mr Benny confidentially, “that the author of that breezy (not to say briny) outburst could not even cross from Dover to Calais without being prostrated by mal de mer; insomuch that his good lady (who happened, by the way, to survive him for a number of years, and, in fact, died quite recently), being of a satirical humour, and herself immune from that distressing complaint, used—­as I once read in a magazine article—­to walk up and down the deck before him on these occasions, mischievously quoting his own verses,—­”

    ’I’m on the sea, I’m on the sea! 
     I am where I would ever be: 
     I love (O, how I love!) to ride
     On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,’

“et coetera.  You’ll excuse my rattling on in this fashion.  So few people in Troy take an interest in literature:  and it has so many by-ways!”

“I’m afraid,” confessed Cai, more and more bewildered, “that my education was pretty badly neglected, ’specially in literature, though for some reason or another I’m not bad at spellin’.  But, puttin’ spellin’ aside, that’s just why I’ve come to you.  I want you to help me with a letter, if you will.”

“Why, of course I will,” instantly responded Mr Benny, pushing his translations of the ‘Fasti’ aside and producing from a drawer some sheets of fresh paper.

“As a matter of business, you understand?”

“If you insist; though it will be a pleasure, Captain Hocken, I assure you.”

“It’s—­it’s a bit difficult,” stammered Cai gratefully.  “In fact, it’s not an ordinary sort of letter at all.”

Mr Benny, patting his paper into a neat pad, smiled professionally.  The letter might not be an ordinary sort of letter; but he had in old days listened some hundreds of times to this exordium.

“It’s—­well, it’s a proposal of marriage,” said Cai desperately; and in despite of himself he started as he uttered the word.

Mr Benny, having patted up the pad to his satisfaction, answered with a nod only, and dipped his pen in the inkpot.

“I don’t think you heard me,” ventured Cai.  “It’s a proposal of marriage.”

“Fire away!” said Mr Benny.  “Just dictate, of give me the main bearings, and I’ll fix it up.”

“But look here—­it’s a proposal of marriage, I tell you!”

“I’ve written scores and scores. . . .  For yourself, is it?”

This simple and indeed apparently necessary question hit Cai between wind and water.