egram to me from any place you chance to stop at to-night?"

"Why, what's up now?" I asked.

"Nothing much, but my old uncle won't let me go, and I want to take
Ellen to Margate for the day. This telegram says mother's ill and
wants me. Will you send it through and put in the name of the place
where you stop to-night?"

I said that I would, and sticking the sixpence inside my glove and the
form into my pocket, I thought no more about it, and drove straight
away to Benny's. The old boy was dressed fit to marry the whole Gaiety
ballet, white frock suit, white hat, and a rose as big as a full-blown
tomato in his button-hole. To the valet he gave his directions in a
voice that could have been heard half down the street. He was going to
Watford, and would return in a week.

"Mind," he cried, "I'm staying at the King's Arms, and you can send my
letters down there." Then he waved his hand to me, and we set off.
The road to Watford via Edgware is traps from end to end, and, well as
the White was going, I did not dare to let her out. It was just after
half-past eleven when we left town, and about a quarter to one when we
dropped down the hill into Watford town. Here "Benny" leant over and
spoke to me.

"Shan't lunch here," he cried, as though the idea had come to him
suddenly; "get on to St. Albans or to Hatfield if you like. The Red
Lion will do me--drive on there and don't hurry."

I made no answer, but drove quietly through the town, and so by the old
high road to St. Albans and thence to Hatfield. Truth to tell, the car
interested me far more than old Benny or his plans. She was steaming
beautifully, and I had six hundred pounds' pressure all the time.
While that was so I didn't care the turn of a nut whether old Benny
lunched at Watford or at Edinburgh, and as for his adventure with the
girl--well, you couldn't expect me to go talking about another man's
good luck. In fact, I had forgotten all about it long before we were
at Hatfield, and when we had lunched and the old chap suddenly
remembered that he would like to spend the night at Newmarket, I was
not so surprised--for this is the motorist's habit all the world over,
and there's the wonder of the motor-car, that, whether you wish to
sleep where you are or a hundred miles distant, she'll do the business
for you and make no complaint about it.

Perhaps you will say that I ought to have been surprised, ought to have
guessed that this man was up to no g