nt to miss Carcassonne," she objected. "You've told me so
much about the place that I've been looking forward to it more than to
almost anything else."

So had I, if the truth were known, but I had looked forward to visiting
Carcassonne with her before I had "drunk and seen the spider." In other
words, before Mr. Payne had joined our party. However, I couldn't bear
to have her disappointed, for his fault, too; besides, I'm vain enough
to like hearing from her lips the flattering words, "Brown, you are so
resourceful!" Therefore I stirred up my brains in the effort to be
resourceful now.

"We might hide the car in Carcassonne if we could once get in," I
mysteriously suggested; "then you could steal up on foot to the _cite_
by moonlight, and when you'd had your fill of sight-seeing steal back to
the car again and make a rush for it."

"Splendid!" cried Miss Randolph, clapping her hands. Behold, I had made
a hit!

The car was stopped, the tea-basket got out, and who so indispensable as
the late despised Brown? Brown it was who went to a cottage hard by and
procured drinking-water, since, not expecting to stop, we had come out
unprovided. Brown it was who saved the methylated spirit from upsetting,
and Brown was rewarded presently with an excellent cup of tea, into
which Miss Randolph had dropped two lumps of sugar with her own blessed
little pink-tipped fingers. As a matter of fact, in ordinary
circumstances sugar in tea is medicinal to my taste; but when that angel
sat with a lump between her fingers asking how many I would have, though
she had just let Jimmy Sherlock put in his own, I would have said half a
dozen, if that would have left any over for her. And if the taste was
medicinal, why, it had a curative effect on my injured feelings.

Refreshed, invigorated by more than tea, I felt ready for anything.
Darkness was falling, but I didn't light the lamps. The road was empty,
a torch of dusky red blazing along the west. We started, going
cautiously; our tongues silent, our eyes alert. By-and-by, from afar
off, we caught the twinkle of low-set, yellow lights. We were coming to
the neighbourhood of the _octroi_. Luckily it was cold; the door and
windows of the house would certainly be shut, unless the men were
engaged in transacting business in the road. I now hurriedly explained
to Miss Randolph the exact method I meant to adopt, and the word was
passed round to be "mum." While the tea-things were being packed away