could tell, we might have been
the rankest of rank impostors. After the departure of this faithless
guardian, Miss Randolph and I sat enthroned in the car for some twenty
minutes before Aunt Mary and Jimmy came speeding round the corner of the
mews. They brought with them an atmosphere of warmth and good cheer, and
at first sniff it was evident that they had dined where dining in both
solid and liquid branches was a fine art.

In my part of servant I was not "on" in the ensuing comedy; but I
listened "in the wings," and chuckled inwardly. Well did Miss Randolph
fill the role of injured virtue which she had taken up at such short
notice. Her surprise that Aunt Mary and Jimmy could have been capable of
betraying her trust in them, that they should have gone off and left a
valuable car, which wasn't even hers, to the tender mercies of a stupid
little boy, a perfect stranger, was bravely done. It was represented as
a miracle that the Napier and everything in it had not been stolen
during their absence; and the good dinner the culprits had enjoyed at
the neighbouring hotel could not fortify them against the blighting
sense of their own depravity so vividly brought home.

Not a reproach for us; all the wind had been taken out of their sails.
A sadder and wiser Jimmy and Aunt Mary meekly allowed themselves to be
driven on through the cold moonlight, with distant gleams of towered
towns, to Narbonne, where I am writing to you, after having dined and
cleaned the car. Our hotel is not an ideal one; yet on my hard pillow my
head, I ween, will lie easier than on a downy one last night. We arrived
late, and will leave early, to lessen the chances of being pounced upon
by the clutches of the law. But I begin to hope that, after all, those
peasants decided to let well alone, and that we shall escape scatheless.

When I was a little boy we used to have honey in red-brown earthenware
pots labelled "Finest Narbonne Honey," and for years the place figured
in my imagination as a smiling region of brilliant flowers. But the
disillusioning reality is a dusty, rather noisy, very commercial town,
paved with stones the most abominable; and between Carcassonne and here
the roads grow more abominable with every kilometre. I am tired, but not
unhappy; and so, good night.

Your fraudulent friend,
Brown-Winston.

JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE