“Yes, Jane Packard.”

“Do I love Jane Packard?” said William, assembling the material and arranging it neatly in his mind.

He pondered for perhaps five minutes.

“Why, of course I do,” he said.

“Splendid!”

“Devotedly, dash it!”

“Capital.”

“You might say madly.”

I tapped him on his barrel-like chest.

“Then my advice to you, William Bates, is to tell her so.”