bulged; and
here, holding for dear life to the shrubs, he waited for me to save
him. Such a torture I have never known, or shall know again. The
sight of my friend, not ten feet away from me, the precipice forbidding
me to go down, for it was quite sheer at the top; his white face, his
desperate hold at the scrappy shrubs--oh, you can't imagine or think of
the truth of it as I had to upon that awful morning.

"How long can you hold on?" I asked him, clenching my teeth when I had
spoken.

"Perhaps a minute, perhaps two. If you could get a rope, Lal----"

"I'll stop a car," said I--a madder thing was never said, but I had to
say something--"I'll stop a car and make them help me. Perhaps my
shirt will do it, Ferdy."

"Good-bye if it doesn't," he said quite quietly; and I knew then that
he was prepared for death, and had expected it; but I was already busy
with my shirt, tearing it up with twitching fingers, when he spoke
again.

"Pity we haven't got the rope I towed you with the other day," he said
suddenly; and at that I started up as though he had hit me.

"The rope--where did you carry it?"

"It was in the tool-box," he answered, still quite calm.

I think I shouted out at that--I know I was crying like a woman a
minute afterwards. The tool-box! Why, it lay there, against the rock,
before my very nose, the d----d fool! And the very rope which had
first brought our friendship about: was it accident or destiny which
put it into my hands, and did Ferdinand do right or wrong to say I
brought him luck?

I shan't answer these questions--for he was sitting beside me less than
two minutes afterwards, and we were hugging each other like brothers.

* * * * *

Maisa Hubbard's friend didn't get first to Vienna, and pleased enough I
was. Whether Ferdy just imagined that she had an evil influence over
him, or whether it is true that some women are the mistresses of men's
destiny, I don't pretend to say. The story is there to speak for
itself.

And Maisa, I may add, is in the halfpenny papers. Do you remember that
famous case of Lord--but perhaps it isn't my place to speak about that?

[1] The names of the driver, Ferdinand, and the car, the Modena, have
been substituted by the Editor for those in Mr. Britten's own
narrative. The reasons for this will be obvious to the reader.

V

THE BASKET IN THE BOUNDARY ROAD

The doctors will tell you sometimes that motoring is g