ted in order to support
a grandmother, or an invalid sister, I forget which. A wonderful talent
for swallowing, these newspaper chaps has, some of 'em!

"Kipper" never touched a penny of her money, but if he had been her agent
at twenty-five per cent. he couldn't have worked harder, and he just kept
up the hum about her, till if you didn't want to hear anything more about
Caroline Trevelyan, your only chance would have been to lie in bed, and
never look at a newspaper. It was Caroline Trevelyan at Home, Caroline
Trevelyan at Brighton, Caroline Trevelyan and the Shah of Persia,
Caroline Trevelyan and the Old Apple-woman. When it wasn't Caroline
Trevelyan herself it would be Caroline Trevelyan's dog as would be doing
something out of the common, getting himself lost or summoned or
drowned--it didn't matter much what.

I moved from Oxford Street to the new "Horseshoe" that year--it had just
been rebuilt--and there I saw a good deal of them, for they came in to
lunch there or supper pretty regular. Young "Kipper"--or the "Captain"
as everybody called him--gave out that he was her half-brother.

"I'ad to be some sort of a relation, you see," he explained to me. "I'd
a' been 'er brother out and out; that would have been simpler, only the
family likeness wasn't strong enough. Our styles o' beauty ain't
similar." They certainly wasn't.

"Why don't you marry her?" I says, "and have done with it?"

He looked thoughtful at that. "I did think of it," he says, "and I know,
jolly well, that if I 'ad suggested it 'fore she'd found herself, she'd
have agreed, but it don't seem quite fair now."

"How d'ye mean fair?" I says.

"Well, not fair to 'er," he says. "I've got on all right, in a small
way; but she--well, she can just 'ave 'er pick of the nobs. There's one
on 'em as I've made inquiries about. 'E'll be a dook, if a kid pegs out
as is expected to, and anyhow 'e'll be a markis, and 'e means the
straight thing--no errer. It ain't fair for me to stand in 'er way."

"Well," I says, "you know your own business, but it seems to me she
wouldn't have much way to stand in if it hadn't been for you."

"Oh, that's all right," he says. "I'm fond enough of the gell, but I
shan't clamour for a tombstone with wiolets, even if she ain't ever Mrs.
Capt'n Kit. Business is business; and I ain't going to queer 'er pitch
for 'er."

I've often wondered what she'd a' said, if he'd up and put the case to
her plain, for she was a