“Agreed, mother; your programme shall be carried out to the letter, if I can manage it.”
“When,” asked my mother, “did your friend say he passed through that village?”
I opened his letter to ascertain, when my eye fell on a postscript which had escaped me on the first perusal. It ran thus—
“P.S. I see no reason why I should not ask you to wish me joy. I’m going to be married, my boy, to Blue-eyes! I could not forget her. I had no hope whatever of discovering her. I had settled in my mind to live and die an old bachelor, when I suddenly met her. It was in Piccadilly, when I was home, some months ago, in reference to an increase of my nominal salary from the EI (which by the way came to nothing—its original figure). I entered a ’bus and ran my head against that of a lady who was coming out. I looked up to apologise, and was struck dumb. It was Blue-eyes! I assisted her to alight, and stammered, I know not what, something like—‘A thousand pardons—surely we have met—excuse me—a mistake—Thunderer—captain, great guns, torpedoes, and blazes—’ in the midst of which she smiled, bowed, and moved on. I moved after her. I traced her (reverentially) to a house. It was that of a personal friend! I visited that friend, I became particularly intimate with that friend, I positively bored that friend until he detested me. At last I met her at the house of that friend and—but why go on? I am now ‘captain’ of the Blue-eyes, and would not exchange places with any officer in the Royal Navy; we are to be married on my return, if I’m not shot, assassinated, or hanged in the meantime. U.B.”
“Ah, Jeff,” said my mother, “how I wish that you would—”
She stopped.
“I know what you’re going to say,” I returned, with a smile; “and there is a charming little—”
“Well, Jeff, why don’t you go on?”
“Well, I don’t see why I should not tell you, mother, that there is a charming little woman—the very best woman in the world—who has expressed herself willing to—you understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”