s quarry.

"Ah," he cried, "here is our faithful friend once more. Good-day, Mr.
Britten. I hope I see you well?"

"You see me next door to the devil," said I--for out here on the
mountain side I didn't care a dump for him. Bluff, however, went for
nothing that morning. I had met my match, and I knew it.

"Britten," says he, taking a big cigar from a case and lighting it with
provoking deliberation. "Shall we make a truce, Britten?"

"Make what you like," says I. "This car has got to get to Paris to
fetch my mistress. If a truce will do it, I'm taking some, right here."

He smiled again, but so softly that I could have hit him.

"Where is she hiding, Britten?" he asked, almost in a whisper. "Where
has that very pretty lady chosen to conceal her charms? Come, tell me,
my lad, and I'll give you five louis. What is the good of being so
foolish?"

I didn't answer a word, and he took another look all round the hills.
Luckily, if there was one coppice, there were twenty in that gorge, and
when I saw him walking away to the wrong one, I thought I should burst
out laughing on the spot. That, I am glad to say, I did not do; but
calmly going on with my work, I had the new cover in presently and was
ready to make a start. From that moment the drollery of the
situation--for it was droll, as I live--began in dead earnest, and
lasted right through a hot summer's day--until dusk came down, in fact,
and the issue was over for good and all.

Can't you imagine just what happened, and see the irony of it all?
Depict a great open chasm between the hills, little copses of pines
everywhere, and more than one thicket; a white road winding through the
valley, and two cars stuck up on that same.

Say that there was a fat Baron trotting to and fro like a dog hunting
for rabbits; put down two tired and hungry chauffeurs, famished for
want of meat and cursing their fate; do this, and add that they swore
at both the sexes indifferently, and you'll have the thing to a tick.
But I assure you that it's pleasanter to read about than to suffer; and
any driver would admit as much.

Good Lord, what a day it was! The fat Baron, I should tell you, did
not give up the hunt until near twelve o'clock; but when he had
searched every thicket within a mile or more, he came back to us and
deliberately made himself comfortable inside his car. As for me, I did
not dare to move a step either way. If I had gone on, it would have
been to have