The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Man Who Drove the Car, by Max Pemberton

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Title: The Man Who Drove the Car

Author: Max Pemberton

Release Date: April 23, 2009 [EBook #28595]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN WHO DROVE THE CAR ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Illustration: Cover art]

THE MAN WHO

DROVE THE CAR

BY

MAX PEMBERTON

AUTHOR OF

"THE GIRL WITH THE RED HAIR"

"THE IRON PIRATE" ETC.

LONDON

EVELEIGH NASH

FAWSIDE HOUSE

1910

Printed by BALLANTYNE & Co. LIMITED

Tavistock Street, Coven Garden, London

CONTENTS

I. THE ROOM IN BLACK
II. THE SILVER WEDDING
III. IN ACCOUNT WITH DOLLY ST. JOHN
IV. THE LADY WHO LOOKED ON
V. THE BASKET IN THE BOUNDARY ROAD
VI. THE COUNTESS

I

THE ROOM IN BLACK

They say that every man should have a master, but, for my part, I
prefer a mistress. Give me a nice young woman with plenty of money in
her pocket, and a bit of taste for seeing life, and I'll leave you all
the prying "amatoors" that ever sniffed about a gear-box without
knowing what was inside that same.

I have driven plenty of pretty girls in my life; but I don't know that
the prettiest wasn't Fauny Dartel, of the Apollo. This story isn't
about her--except in a way--so it doesn't much matter; but when I first
knew Fauny she was getting thirty bob a week in "The Boys of Boulogne,"
and, as she paid me three pound ten every Saturday, and the car cost
her some four hundred per annum to run, she must have been of a saving
disposition. Certainly a better mistress no man wants--not Lal
Britten, which is yours truly. I drove her for five months, and never
had a word with her. Then a man, who said he was a bailiff, came and
took her car away, and there was no money for me on the Saturday. So I
suppose she married into the peerage.

My story isn't about Fauny Dartel, though it's got to do with her.
It's about a man who didn't know who he was--at least, he said so--and
couldn't tell you why he did it. We picked him up outside the Carlton
Hotel, Fauny and me,[1] three nights before "The Boys of Bo