ulogne" went
into the country, and "The Girls" from some other shop took their
place. She was going to sup with her brother, I remember--astonishing
how many brothers she had, too--and I was to return to the mews off
Lancaster Gate, when, just as I had set her down and was about to drive
away, up comes a jolly-looking man in a fine fur coat and an opera hat,
and asks me if I was a taxi. Lord, how I stared at him!

"Taxi yourself," says I, "and what asylum have you escaped out of?"

"Oh, come, come," says he, "don't be huffy. I only wanted to go as far
as Portman Square."

"Then call a furniture van," says I, "and perhaps they'll get you
aboard."

My dander was up, I tell you, for I was on the box of as pretty a
Daimler landaulette as ever came out of Coventry, and if there's
anything I never want to be, it's the driver of a pillar-box with a
flag in his left ear. No doubt I should have said much more to the
gentleman, when what do you think happens--why, Fauny herself comes up
and tells me to take him.

"I'm sure we should like some one to do the same for us if no taxis
were about," says she very sweetly; "please take the gentleman,
Britten, and then you can go home."

Well, I sat there as amazed a man as any in the Haymarket. It's true
there weren't any taxis on the rank at the minute; but he could have
got one by walking a hundred yards along Trafalgar Square, and she must
have known it as well as he did. All the same, she smiled sweetly at
him and he at her--and then, with a tremendous sweep of his hat, he
makes a gallant speech to her.

"I am under a thousand obligations," says he; "really, I couldn't
intrude."

"Oh, get in and go off," says she, almost pushing him. "I shall lose
my supper if you don't."

He obeyed her immediately, and away we went. You will remember that
his talk had been of a house in Portman Square; but no sooner had I
turned the corner by the Criterion than he began speaking through the
tube, and telling me to go to Playford's in Berkeley Square. There he
stopped, notwithstanding that it was getting on for twelve o'clock; and
when he had rung the bell and entered the house, I had to wait a good
fifteen minutes before he was ready for the second stage.

"Is it Portman Square now?" I asked him. He laughed and slipped a
sovereign into my hand.

"I can see you're one of the right sort," he said. "Would you mind
running round to the King's Road, Chelsea, for ten minutes? P