aid I, nodding at a huge pantechnicon, "that we might pass
the furniture."

I know no horn whose note is at once so compelling and offensive as
that of the usher with which Pong was equipped. I know no din at once
so obliterative and brain-shaking as that induced by the passage of a
French pantechnicon, towed at a high speed over an abominable road.
That the driver of the tractor failed to hear our demand was not
remarkable. That he should have elected to sway uncertainly along the
very crown of the road was most exasperating....

Three times did Berry essay to push by; three times at the critical
moment did the tractor lurch drunkenly across our bows; and three times
did Pong fall back discomfited. The dust, the reek, the vibration, the
pandemonium, were combining to create an atmosphere worthy of a place
in the Litany. One's senses were cuffed and buffeted almost to a
standstill. I remember vaguely that Daphne was clinging to my arm,
wailing that "it was no good." I know I was shouting. Berry was
howling abusive incoherence in execrable French....

We were approaching the top of a hill..

Suddenly the tractor swung away to its right. With a yell of triumph,
my unwitting brother-in-law thrust at the gap.... Pong leapt forward.

Mercifully there was a lane on the left, and I seized the wheel and
wrenched it round, at the same time opening the throttle as wide as I
dared. I fancy we took the corner on two wheels. As we did so, a pale
blue racer streaked by our tail-lamp with the roar of an avalanche.

When Daphne announced that, if she reached Biarritz alive, she should
drive home with Jonah, I was hardly surprised.

It was perhaps an hour later that, after passing grey-headed Bayonne,
we came to her smart little sister and the villa we sought.

The great lodge-gates were open, but Ping was without in the road,
while Jonah was leaning languidly against the wall. As we slowed up,
he took his pipe from his mouth.

"I shouldn't drive in," he said. "They're out. Won't be back before
six, the servants say."

* * * * *

Black as was the evidence against him, my brother-in-law stoutly
refused to be held responsible for the affair. All the way to the
Hotel du Palais he declared violently that the engagement had been well
and truly made, and that if Evelyn and her husband chose to forget all
about it, that was no fault of his. Finally, when Jonah suggested that
after luncheon