nor the horse, not even his tail. All you
could see were gas jets, but not the iron that supported them. The
cabman discovered the fact that he was lost and turned around in
circles and the horse slipped on the asphalt which was thick with
frost, and then we backed into lamp-posts and curbs until Ethel got so
scared she bit her under lip until it bled. You could not tell whether
you were going into a house or over a precipice or into a sea. The
horse finally backed up a flight of steps, and rubbed the cabby against
a front door, and jabbed the wheels into an area railing and fell down.
That, I thought, was our cue to get out, so we slipped into a well of
yellow mist and felt around for each 'other until a square block of
light suddenly opened in mid air and four terrified women appeared in
the doorway of the house through which the cabman was endeavoring to
butt himself. They begged us to come in, and we did-- Being Christmas
and because the McCarthy's always call me "King" I had put on all my
decorations and the tin star and I also wore my beautiful fur coat, to
which I have treated myself, and a grand good thing it is, too-- I took
this off because the room was very hot, forgetting about the
decorations and remarked in the same time to Ethel that it would be
folly to try and get to Barkston Gardens, and that we must go back to
the "Duchess's" for the night. At this Ethel answered calmly "yes,
Duke," and I became conscious of the fact that the eyes of the four
women were riveted on my fur coat and decorations. At the word "Duke"
delivered by a very pretty girl in an evening frock and with nothing on
her hair the four women disappeared and brought back the children, the
servants, and the men, who were so overcome with awe and excitement and
Christmas cheer that they all but got down on their knees in a circle.
So, we fled out into the night followed by minute directions as to
where "Your Grace" and "Your Ladyship" should turn. For years, no
doubt, on a Christmas Day the story will be told in that house,
wherever it may be in the millions of other houses of London, how a
beautiful Countess and a wicked Duke were pitched into their front door
out of a hansom cab, and after having partaken of their Christmas
supper, disappeared again into a sea of fog. The only direction Ethel
and I could remember was that we were to go to the right when we came
to a Church, so when by feeling our way by the walls we finally reached