Usheful, County Council.'

"'County Council!' put in the lady sharply. 'Don't tell me!'

"'He's but a candidate at present, ma'am,' I explained.

"She eyed us both suspiciously. 'No kid, is it?' she asked.

'You ain't a dress-clothes detective? What? . . . Then, as between a lady and a gentleman, why haven't you introduced him? It's usual.'

"'So it is, ma'am. Forgive me, this is Mr. Peter Farrell.

Mr. Farrell, the--the--Lady Petunia.'

"'And very delicately you done it, young man.' The Lady Petunia bowed amiably. 'This ain't no--this isn't--no time nor place for taking advantages and compromising.' She pitched her voice higher and addressed Farrell. 'I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, if I caught your name correctly. Mr. Farrell?--and of the National Liberal Club? The address is sufficient, sir. It carries its own recommendation--though I had hoped for the Const.i.tutional.'

"'It's still harder to p.r.o.nounce, ma'am,' I a.s.sured her. 'That is my friend's only reason.'

"'It was you that started my-ladying me,' she claimed. 'Why don't you keep it up? I like it.'

"'My dear Lady Petunia,' said I, 'as you so well put it, the National Liberal Club carries its own recommendation. What's more, it's going to be the saving of us.'

"'I don't see connecshun,' objected Farrell. 'They don't admit--'

"'They'll admit you,' I said; 'and that's where you'll sleep to-night. The night porter will hunt out a pair of pyjamas and escort you up the lift. Oh, he's used to it. He gets politicians from Bradford and such places dropping in at all hours. Don't try the marble staircase--it's winding and slippery at the edge. . . .

And don't stand gaping at me in that helpless fashion, but get a move on your intelligence. . . . We're dealing with a lady in distress, and that's our first consideration. Now I can't take you on to Wimbledon, however willing to be shut of you: first, because it would take time, and next because I'm not sure how much petrol's left in the machine. So back we turn for be lights of merry London.

We deposit the Lady Petunia at--what's the address, ma'am?"

"'Never you mind,' said she helpfully. 'Put me down somewhere near the end of Vauxhall Bridge, and I'll find my way.'

"'Spoken like an angel,' said I. 'And then, Farrell, you're for the National Liberal Club. The servants there are not known to me, but I'll bet on their asking fewer questions than I should have to answer your housekeeper.'

"I think Farrell was about to demand time for consideration. But the Lady Petunia gripped him by the arm. 'Loveadove!' she exclaimed.

'There's a copper coming down the road!' We bundled him back into the taxi. 'It's a real copper, too,' she warned me as she sprang in at his heels. 'Spark her up, and hurry!--I can tell the sound of their boots at fifty yards.'

"Well, Otty, I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris and she.--She was right. The policeman came up and drew to a halt as, without an indecent show of haste, I dropped into the driver's seat, started up and slewed the wheel round.

"'Anything wrong?' he asked.

"'There was,' said I. 'Over-succulence in the bivalves: but she'll work home, I think.'

"I pipped him Good night, and we sailed down the hill in some style.

Sharp to the right, and by and by I opened a common on my right-- Wandsworth? Clapham?--Don't ask _me_. I named it Clapham. 'To your tents, O Clapham!' I shouted as I went: but the warning was superfluous. As the poet--wasn't it Wordsworth?--remarked on a famous occasion, Dear G.o.d! the very houses seemed asleep. . . .'

"It must have been five or six minutes later that our petrol gave out and my trusted taxi came gently to a halt in the middle of the roadway. I climbed out, opened the door and explained. 'Step out, quick,' said I, 'and make down this street to the left. We must tangle the track a bit, with this piece of evidence behind us.'

"The Lady Petunia considerately took Farrell's arm. 'Why, he can walk!' she announced. 'I'm all ri'!' Farrell a.s.sured her. 'You may be yet,' she answered, 'if you keep your head shut.' Farrell asked me if I considered that a ladylike expression. To this she retorted that she couldn't bear for anyone to speak crossly to her: it broke her heart.

"'Capital!' said I. 'Voices a tone lower, please--but keep it up, and you're husband and wife, returning from an evening at the theatre. Taxi broken down--wife peevish at having to walk remaining distance. Keep it up, and I'll undertake to steer you past half the police in London.'

"Well, I steered them past two, and without a question. Not one of us knew our bearings, but we were making excellent weather of it, and at length came out by the by-streets upon a fine broad thoroughfare with an arc-lamp at the corner.

"I stared up at the building on my left, against which he lamp shone.

There was no street-sign at the angle, and an inscription in large gilt letters on the facade was not very hopeful--ROYAL SOUTH LONDON PICTUREDROME--yet to some extent rea.s.suring. We were at any rate lost in London; and not in Byzantium, as we might have deduced from other architectural details.

"'And yet I am not wholly sure,' said I. 'We will ask the next policeman. _Picturedrome_ now--barbaric union of West and East.-- Surely the word must be somewhere in Gibbon. Ever met it in Gibbon, Farrell?'

"'No, I haven't,' he answered testily. 'Never was in Gibbon, to my knowledge. Where is it? . . . But I'll tell you what!' he wound up, fierce and sudden; 'I've met with too many policemen to-night; avenuesh, we've been pa.s.sin'. Seems to me neighb'rhood infested.

Not like Soho. 'Nequal dishtribush'n bobbies. 'Nequal distribush'n everything. Cursh--curse--modern shivilzash'n--d.a.m.n!'

"'Our taxi,' I mused, 'may have been a magic one. We are in a dream, and the Lady Petunia is part of it. She may vanish at any moment--'

"But Petunia had turned about for a glance along the street behind us. Instead of vanishing, she clawed my arm sharply, suppressed a squeal, and pointed. . . . Fifty yards away stood a taxi, and two policemen beside it, flashing their lanterns over it and into its interior.

"Between two flashes I recognised it. . . . It was _mine_, my Arab taxi, my beautiful, my own. . . . Farrell's fatal propensity for steering to the right had fetched us around, almost full circle.

"There she stood, with her mute appealing headlights. 'Wha's matter?' asked Farrell. 'Oh, I say--Oh, come! _More_ of 'em?'

"'I dragged him and Petunia back into the shadow under the side-wall of the Picturedrome, and leaned back against the edifice while I mopped my brow. My shoulder-blade encountered the sharp edge of a rainwater pipe. A bright and glorious inspiration took hold of me.

Farrell had made all the running, so far: it was time for me to a.s.sert my manhood.

"'Wait here,' I whispered, 'and all will be well. In three minutes--'

"'Here, I say!' interposed the Lady Petunia. 'You're not going to do a bilk?'

"'Dear lady,' I answered, 'for at least twenty minutes you have been complaining, and pardonably, that my friend and I have enjoyed the pleasure of your company yet repaid it with no form of entertainment.

I fear we cannot offer you Grand Opera. But if your taste inclines to the Movies--'

"'Get along, you silly,' she rebuked me. 'Ain't you sober enough to see the place is closed?'

"'If I were sure it wouldn't be used as evidence against me,' I answered gallantly, 'I should say that Love laughs at Locksmiths.

Here, take my overcoat; my watch also--as evidence of good faith and because it gets in one's way, climbing. . . . Wait by this door, which (you can see) is an Emergency Exit, and within five minutes you shall be reposing in a plush seat and admitting that the finish crowns the work.'"

"Well, at this hour, Otty, I won't dwell on my contribution to the evening's pleasure. Besides, it was nothing to boast of. I was a member of the Oxford Alpine Club, you know: and the water-pipe offered no difficulties. The stucco was in poor condition--I should say that it hardens more easily in Byzantium--but for difficulty there was nothing comparable with New College Chapel, or the friable masonry and the dome of the Radcliffe.

"I let myself down through a skylight into the bowels of the place: found, with the help of matches, the operating box and the gallery, switched on the lights, and shinned down a pillar to the stalls.

After that, to open the Emergency Exit and admit my audience was what the detective stories call the work of a moment. I re-closed the door carefully, and climbed back to manipulate the lantern.

"I had helped to work one of these shows once, at a Sunday School treat--or a Primrose Fete--forget which--down in the country.

It's quite simple when you have the hang of it. . . . I made a mull with the first reel: got it upside down; and Petunia, from somewhere deep under the gallery, called up 'Gar'n!' It was a Panorama of Pekin, anyway, and dull enough whichever way you took it.

"After that we fairly spun through 'The Cowpuncher's Stunt'--a train robbery--'The Missing Million,' and a man tumbling out of the top storey of Flat-Iron Building, New York. He went down, storey after storey, to the motto of 'Keep on Moving,' and just before he hit the ground he began to tumble up again. On his way up he smacked all the faces looking out at the windows--I often wonder, Otty, how they get people to do these things: but I suppose the risk's taken into account in the pay.

"Farrell took a great fancy to 'Keep on Moving.' Up to this we had been snug as fleas in a blanket; but now he started to make such a noise, encoring, that I had to step down to the gallery and lean over it and request Petunia to take the cover off the piano and play something, if she could, to deaden the outcries. 'Something domestic on the loud pedal,' I suggested. 'Create an impression that we're holding a rehearsal after hours.'

"She came forward, looked up, and said that I reminded her of Romeo and Juliet upside down.

"'Of course!' I explained. 'We're in Pekin. Get to the piano, quick.'

"'I've forgotten my scales,' she answered back, between Farrell's calls of ''Core! 'Core!'--'Will it do if I sit on the keys?'