"My spirit soared as we took the bridge with a rush, cleared the High Street and breasted Putney Hill for the Heath. The night was clear, with a southerly breeze. The stars shone, and I seemed to inhale all the scents of a limitless prairie, wafted past the wind-screen from the heath and the stretch of Wimbledon Common beyond. . . . Why should I miss anything of this glorious chance? Why should I tamely deliver Farrell at a house the name of which I had forgotten, the situation of which was unknown to me, the domestics of which, when I found it by painful inquiry, would probably receive me with cold suspicion, as a misleader of middle-age? In fine, why should I not strike the Common and roam there, letting the good car have her head while Farrell slept himself sober. A line or two of the late Robert Browning's waltzed in my head:"

'What if we still ride on, we two?'

'--Ride, ride together, for ever ride.'

"I brought the car gently to a halt on the edge of the heath, under the stars, climbed out, and opened the door briskly.

"'Look here, Farrell,' I announced. 'I've a notion--'

"'Then it's more than _I_ have, of the way you're treating a lady!'

answered a voice; and out stepped a figure in skirts! By George, Otty, you might have knocked me down with a--with a feather boa: which was just what this apparition seemed preparing to do.

I had brought the taxi to rest close under a gas-lamp, and in the light of it she confronted me, slightly swaying the hand which grasped the boa.

"'Good Lord! ma'am,' I gasped,' how in the world . . . ?'

"'That's what I want to know,' said she, with more show of menace.

'What is your game, young man? Abduction?'

"'I swear to you, ma'am,' I stammered, 'that my intentions would be strictly honourable if I happened to have any. . . . I may be more intoxicated than I felt up to a moment ago. . . . But let us, at all events, keep our heads. It seems the only way out of this predicament, that we keep strictly in touch with reality. Very well, then. . . . You entered this vehicle, a middle-aged gentleman something more than three sheets in the wind. You emerge from it apparently sober and of the opposite s.e.x. If any explanation be necessary,' I wound up hardily, 'I imagine it to be due to _me_, who have driven you thus far under a false impression--and, I may add, at no little risk to the transpontine traffic.'

"'Look here!' said this astonishing female. 'I don't know how it's happened, but I believe I am addressing a gentleman--'

"'I hope so,' said I, as she paused.

"'Well, then,' she demanded, smoothing her skirt, and seating herself on the edge of the gra.s.s, under the lamplight. 'The question is, what do you propose to do? I place myself in your hands, unreservedly.'

"I managed to murmur that she did me honour. 'But with your leave, ma'am,' said I, 'we'll defer that point for a moment while you tell me how on earth you have managed to change places with my friend, whom with my own eyes I saw enter this vehicle. It must have been a lightning change anyhow: for all the way from Piccadilly I have been priding myself on our speed.'

"'Change places?' she exclaimed. 'Change places? I'm a respectable married woman, young sir: and as such I'd ask you what else was due to myself when he sat down on my lap without even being interjuiced?'

"I made a step to the door of the taxi, but turned and came back.

'He's inside, then?' I asked.

"'Of course he's inside,' she retorted. 'What d'you take me for?

A body-s.n.a.t.c.her? Inside he is, and snoring like a pig. Wake him up and ask him if I've be'aved short of a lady from the first.'

"'He's incapable of it, ma'am,' said I. 'Or, rather, I should say, _you_ are incapable of it. By which I mean that my friend is incapable of--er--involving you otherwise than innocently in a situation of which--er--you are both incapable, respectively.

Appearances may be against us--'

"'Look here,' she chipped in. 'Have you been drinking too?'

"'A little,' I admitted. 'But you may trust me to be discreet.

How this responsibility comes to be mine, I can't guess: but it is urgent that I restore you to your home, or at any rate find you a decent lodging for the night. Where is your home?' I asked.

"'Walsall,' said she. 'And I wish I had never left it!'

"'Well, ma'am,' said I, 'I won't be so ungallant as to echo that regret. But, speaking for the moment as a taxi-driver, I put it that Walsall is a tidy distance. Were you, by some process that pa.s.ses my guessing, on your way to Walsall when we, as it seems, intercepted you in Piccadilly?'

"'Not at all,' she answered. 'On the contrary, I was wanting to get to Shorncliffe Camp.'

"I mused. 'From Walsall? . . . They must have opened a new route lately.'

"'It's this way,' she told me. 'My husband's a sergeant in the Royal Artillery. He's stationed at Shorncliffe: and I was to meet him there to-night, travelling through London. When I got to London, what with the shops and staring at Buckingham Palace, and one thing and another, I missed the last train down. So, happening to find myself by a line of taxis, I had a mind to ask what the fare might be down to Shorncliffe and tell the man that my husband was expecting me and would pay at the other end. I was that tired, I got into the handiest taxi--that looked smart and comfortable, with a little lamp inside and a nice bunch of artificial flowers made up to look like my Christian name--And what do you think that is? Guess.'

"'I'm hopeless with plants, ma'am," said I, looking hard at the taxi.

'Might it be Daisy?'

"'No, it ain't,' said she. 'There now, you'll take a long time guessing, at that rate. It's Petunia. . . . Well, then as I was saying, I got in and sat back in the cushions, waiting for the Shofer, if that's how you p.r.o.nounce it; and I reckon I must have closed my eyes, for the next thing I remember was this friend of yours sitting plump in my lap without so much as asking leave.

Before I could recover myself we were off. And now, I put it to you as a gentleman, What's to become of me? For, as perhaps I ought to warn you, my husband's a terror when he's roused.'

"'He's at Shorncliffe. We won't rouse him to-night,' I a.s.sured her.

'It's funny,' I went on, 'how often the simplest explanation will--'

But I left that sentence unfinished. 'Have you any relatives in London?' I asked brightly.

"She hesitated, but at length confessed she had a sister resident in Pimlico.

"'Ah!' said I. 'She married beneath her, perhaps?'

"Mrs. Petunia looked at me suspiciously in the lamplight. 'How did you guess that?' she asked.

"'Simplicity itself, ma'am,' I answered. 'She could hardly have done less. And from Eaton Square to Pimlico, what is it but a step? . . .

Or, you may put it down to a brain-wave. Yes, ma'am. And I'm going to have another."

"I stepped to the door of the taxi, threw it open, and shouted to Farrell to tumble out.

"'Wha's matter?' he asked sleepily. 'Where are we?'

"'We're on the edge of Putney Heath,' said I.

"'Ri'!' said he in a murmur. 'You're true friend. First turning to the left and keep straight on. Second gate on Common pasht pillar-box.'

"I haled him forth. 'Look here,' said I. 'Pull yourself together.

I find that we've, in our innocence, abducted this lady, who happened to be resting in the taxi when you jumped in.'

"Farrell, making a mental effort, blinked hard. 'That accounts for it,' said he. 'Thought I felt something wrong when I sat down.'

"'That being so,' I went on, 'you will agree that our first duty, as we are chivalrous men, is to restore her to her relatives.'

"'B'all means,' he agreed heartily. 'R'shtore her. Why not?'

"'As it happens, she has a sister living in Pimlico.'

"'They all--' he began: but I was on the watch and fielded the ball smartly.

"'And you, unless I'm mistaken,' said I, 'are a member of the National Liberal Club?'

"'We all--' he began again, and checked himself to gaze on me with admiration. 'Shay that again,' he demanded. "'You are a member of the National Liberal Club?' I repeated.

"'I am,' he owned; 'but I couldn' pr'nounce it just at this moment, not for a tenner. An' you've said it twice! Tha's what I call carryin' liquor like a gentleman: or else you've studied voice-producsh'n. Wish I'd studied voice-producsh'n, your age.