The Lightning Conductor: The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car. Williamson Charles Norris

hoping for scraps when my betters should have finished, who should pop out but that Angel to say that supper was ready, and would I eat with them! I had been working so hard and must be starved. If she had guessed how I longed to kiss her she would have run away indoors much faster than she did.

      There was soup, chicken, an omelette, and cheese. Trust a Frenchwoman-even the humblest-to turn out an excellent meal on the shortest notice. Miss Randolph smiled and beamed on them, so that in five minutes the farmer and his wife were her willing slaves. She was delighted with the "adventure," as she called it, declaring that the whole thing would be the greatest fun in the world. She was glad that the horrid tyre had come off, as it gave her the chance, which she would never have had otherwise, of studying French peasant life at first hand. Aunt Mary was called in from outside and acquiesced, as she always did, in the arrangements made by her impetuous niece; the farmer and I had pushed the German car inside the gate and left it; but Talleyrand was fussy about getting proper cover for his smart Pieper, and was not satisfied until he had housed it in a dry barn near the house.

      After supper I strolled out into the night, trying, with a pipe between my lips, to think out the details of an alluring new plan which had flashed into my mind.

      "Flashed" there, do I say? Forced, rammed in, and pounded down expresses it better. Will you believe it, during supper, that fellow-Eyelashes, I mean-had had the audacity to urge upon Miss Randolph that she must now continue the tour on his car!

      I was smoking and fuming in the dark, in a corner down by the gateway, when I heard a whisper of silk (I suppose it's linings; I'd know it at the North Pole as hers, now), and detected a shadow which I knew meant Miss Randolph. She came nearer. I saw her distinctly now, for she was carrying a lantern. At first I thought she was looking for me, but she wasn't. She went straight to the car and stood glowering at it for a minute, having set down the lantern. Then she took Something out of the folds of her dress and seemed to feel it with her hand. "Oh, you won't go, won't you?" she inquired sardonically. "You like to break your belts and go dropping your chains about, just to give Brown all the trouble you can, don't you, and keep us from getting anywhere? You think it's enough to be beautiful, and you can be as much of a beast as you like. But you're not beautiful. You're horrid, and I hate you! Take that!"

      Up went the Something in her hand; it glittered in the yellow light of the lantern. If you will believe it, the girl had got a hatchet and was chopping at the car. Her poor vicious little stroke did no great damage, but she chipped off a big flake of varnish and left a white gash.

      "Oh!" she exclaimed, as if it had hurt her and not her great lumbering dragon. "Oh, you deserve it, you know, and a lot more. But-but-" and she gave a little gurgling sigh.

      I had been on the point of bursting out with uncontrollable laughter, but suddenly I ceased to find the thing funny. I couldn't lurk in ambush and hear any more; I couldn't sneak away-even to spare her feelings-and leave her there to cry, for I felt she was going to cry. So I came out into the circle of lantern-light, shaking the tobacco from my pipe.

      "Why, Brown, is that you?" she quavered. "I-I didn't want anyone to see me, and I wasn't crying about the car, but just Because-because of everything. I found that hatchet, and-I couldn't help it. I'm sorry now, though. It was mean of me to hit a thing when it's down, even if it is a Beast. It does deserve to be killed, though. It's simply no use trying to go on with such a thing-is it?"

      Because of the Plan in my mind I replied gloomily that the prospect was rather discouraging.

      "Discouraging! It's impossible!" she cried. "I've been hoping against hope, but I see that now. I won't ask poppa to buy me another; it's too ridiculous. So there's nothing left except to go on by train everywhere, unless-you heard how kind Monsieur Talleyrand was about offering to take us on his car."

      In the lantern light I thought I saw that she was beginning to look enigmatic, but I couldn't trust my eyes at this moment. There were a good many stars floating before them-not heavenly-the kind I should have liked to make Talleyrand see.

      "Yes, miss, I heard," I said brutally, "and, of course, if you and your aunt would like that, I could wire to Mr. Barrow, the gentleman who went round the Château with us to-day, that I was free to take an engagement with him and his daughter."

      She turned on me like a flash. "Oh, is that what you are thinking of? Well-certainly you may consider yourself free-perfectly free. You are under no contract. Go! go to-morrow-or even to-night if you wish. Leave me here with my car. I can go back to Paris, or-or somewhere."

      "But I thought you were going on with the French gentleman?" I said.

      "I should not think of going with him," she announced icily.

      "You said-"

      "I said he invited me. I never said I meant to go; I couldn't have said it. For I should hate going with him. There would be no fun in that at all. I want my own car or none. But that need not matter to you. Go with your Barrows."

      "Begging your pardon, miss, I don't want to go with any Barrows."

      "But you said-"

      "If you wished to get rid of me-"

      "I wish 'to get rid of' you! I don't repudiate my-business arrangements in that way."

      "May I stop on with you, then, miss?" I pleaded at my meekest. "I'll try and do the best I can about the car."

      "Oh, do you really think there's any hope?" She clasped her hands and looked at me as if I were an oracle. Her eyelashes are very long. I wonder why they are so charming on her and so abominable on a Frenchman?

      "I've got an idea in my mind, miss," said I, "that might make everything all right."

      "Brown," said she, "you are a kind of leather angel."

      Then we both laughed. And I am afraid it occurred to her that the ground we were touching was not calculated to bear a lady and her mécanicien, for she turned and ran away.

      It was not yet ten o'clock, and I had something better to do than crawl into the bed of straw that had been offered me. It was not much more than ten miles to Amboise, and opening the great gate as quietly as I could, I stepped out upon the white road and set off briskly for the town, my Plan guiding me like a big bright beacon.

      What I meant to do-what I was meaning and wanting at this present moment to do-is this.

      Being now at Amboise, having knocked up the hotel porter on arriving, I shall let poor old Almond sleep the sleep of the just until the earliest crack of dawn. Then I shall wake him, have my Napier got ready-if that hasn't been done overnight-pay him, press an extra tip into his not unwilling palm, pack him off to England, home, and beauty, after which I shall romp back to the sleeping farmhouse on my own good car.

      My story to Miss Randolph will be that while in Blois yesterday I heard from my master. He is called back to England in a great hurry, wants to leave his car, and would be delighted to let it out on hire at reasonable terms if driven by a good, responsible man-like me. I suppose I shall have to name a sum-say a louis a day-or she'll suspect some game.

      She is sure to snatch at a chance, as a drowning man at a straw, and I pat myself on the back for my inspiration. I am looking forward to a new lease of life with the Napier.

      The window grows grey; I must call Almond. How the Plan works out you shall hear in my next. Au revoir, then.

Your more than ever excited friend,Jack Winston.

      MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

Amboise,November Something-or-Other.

      Dear old Lamb,

      Did you know that you were the papa of a chameleon? An eccentric combination. But Aunt Mary says she has found out that I am one-a chameleon, I mean; but I don't doubt she thinks me an "eccentric combination" too. And, anyway, I don't see how I can help being changeable. Circumstances and motor-cars rule dispositions.

      I wrote you a long letter from Blois, but little did I think then-no, that isn't the way to begin. I believe my starting-handle must have gone wrong, to say nothing