"You want to help them?"
"Of course I do."
"But you can't help them without Hambleby. It's he who goes out and rakes in the shekels, not you."
"Ye-es. I know he does."
"Apart from Hambleby what are you? A simple idiot."
Jane's face expressed her profound and contrite persuasion of this truth.
"Well," he said, "have you written to the lady?"
"Not yet."
"Then sit down and write to her now exactly what I tell you. It will be a beautiful letter; in your manner, not mine."
He stood over her and dictated the letter. It had a firmness of intention that no letter of Jinny's to her people had hitherto expressed, but in all other respects it was a masterly reproduction of Jinny's style.