Part 7 (1/2)

”Why, his lords.h.i.+p's, of course.”

”She seems pretty thick with the dobility. Perhaps I'd better give her a chadce of paying?”

I smiled.

”There's boats to France at Dover,” said I. ”What if she's going over by the night mail?”

He looked at me most shrewdly.

”I can't make you out, Britten,” says he; ”either you are the greatest fool or the greatest rogue id my ebployment. Subtimes you seeb clever enough, too. Suppose we rud the car over to Dover and see what's doing there.”

”Yes,” said I, ”and you can telephone to the pier at Folkestone to have her stopped if she's sailing from there.”

He snapped his fingers and smiled all over his face.

”That's it!” he cried. ”If she's leaving the coudtry I'll arrest her.

I wish you'd been half as sharp when you picked her up id London.”

”It's these motor veils,” said I. ”You can't expect a man to see through three thicknesses of shuffon--now can you, Mr. Moss?”

It was a lucky shot, and, upon my word, I really do believe that I began to wheedle him, Whether I did, or whether I did not, we had the car upon the road in ten minutes, and were off for Dover before a quarter of an hour had pa.s.sed. Previous to that I had slipped into the inn on the pretence of leaving my coat, and had left a letter for Miss Dolly to be taken up by Biggs, when he came there to meet me for our evening walk. ”Moss is here,” I wrote, ”look out for yourself.”

I laugh now when I think of that journey to Dover, and old Shekels Moss sitting like a hawk on the seat beside me. What lies I had to tell him--what starts I gave him, when I pointed out that she might have gone by the afternoon boat, or perhaps motored right on to Southampton.

My own idea was to stop the night at Dover, whatever happened, and no sooner had we drawn up at the ”Lord Warden,” than I had a penknife into the off front tyre, and turned my back when the wind fizzed out. This stopped the run to Folkestone straight away, and, by the time I'd done the job, Moss said he thought he would telephone the police, as I suggested, describing Miss Dolly, but saying nothing about his lords.h.i.+p.

”He might do pusiness with us, Britten,” he remarked. ”I won't have his dabe in it--but I'll tell him about her directly I get the chadce, and she won't be long in his house, dow will she?”

”Perhaps not,” said I; ”but if she marries his lords.h.i.+p's son, the boot will be on the other leg. You'd better think of that, Mr. Moss.”

”What I want is my modey,” he rejoined. ”If she don't pay, she goes to prison--I dow too much about the peerage to be stuffed with promises.

Either the modey or the writ. I'll feed here, Britten, and go back to Sadwich, if she's not on the boats. Perhaps we were a couple of fools to come at all.”

I said nothing, but was pretty sure that one fool had come along in the car, anyway. My business was to keep Moss at Dover as long as might be, and in that I succeeded well enough. Nothing could save Miss Dolly if he went blundering up to Lord Badington's house with his story of what she'd done in London, and how fond certain West End tradesmen had become of her. Given time enough, I believed the pretty little lady would wheedle his lords.h.i.+p to consent to her marriage with Mr. Sarand.

But time she must have, and if she did not get it, well, then, time of another kind might await her. It would have broken my heart to see misfortune overtake pretty Dolly St. John, and I swore that it should not, if any wit of mine could prevent it.

Moss took about an hour and a half over his dinner, and when he came out he was picking his teeth with a great steel p.r.o.ng, and looking as pleased as though he had done the hotel waiters out of fourpence. I saw that he had come to some resolution, and that it was a satisfactory one. There was a twinkle in his little eyes you could not mistake, and he shook his head while he talked to me, just as though I were buying old clothes of him at twice their value.

”Britten,” he asked, ”are you all ready?”

”Quite ready, sir,” said I--for I'd just that minute shoved my knife into another tyre. ”Are you going back to Sandwich?”

”I'm going to Lord Badington's,” says he, with a roar of laughter, ”why not? I'm going to ask for Miss Phyllis More, and say she's an ode fred of the family. Ha, ha! what do you think of that, Britten? Will I get the modey or won't I? Well, we'll see, my boy--so start her up, and be quick about it.”

I said ”Yes, sir,” and went round to the front of the car. My cry of astonishment when I saw the burst tyre would have done credit to Mr.

Henry Irving himself. Perhaps I said some things I shouldn't have said--Moss did, anyway, and he raved so loud that the ostler had to tell him his wife and children were upstairs.

”Another tyre gone--what do I pay you wages for? Adser me that! Who the ---- is going to pay the bill? Don't you see I must get to Sadwich to-night? A pretty sort of a dam fool you must be. Now you get that car going in twedy minutes, or I'll leave you in the street--so help me heaven I will----” And so on and so on, until I could have dropped for laughing where I stood.