parted his lips, showing an almost sinister gleam of white teeth between
his full black moustache and beard,--then, bringing his sombre glance to
bear slowly down on Wrotham's insignificant form, he continued,--"Are
you his lordship?"

Wrotham nodded with a careless condescension, and, lighting a cigar,
began to smoke it.

"And you drive your car yourself!" proceeded Tom,--"you must have good
nerve and a keen eye!"

"Oh well!" And Wrotham laughed airily--"Pretty much so!--but I won't
boast!"

"How many miles an hour?" went on Tom, pursuing his inquiries with an
almost morbid eagerness.

"Forty or fifty, I suppose--sometimes more. I always run at the highest
speed. Of course that kind of thing knocks the motor to pieces rather
soon, but one can always buy another."

"True!" said Tom. "Very true! One can always buy another!" He paused,
and seemed to collect his thoughts with an effort,--then noticing the
half-glass of brandy he had left on the counter, he took it up and drank
it all off at a gulp. "Have you ever had any accidents on the road?"

"Accidents?" Lord Wrotham put up an eyeglass. "Accidents? What do you
mean?"

"Why, what should I mean except what I say!" And Tom gave a sudden loud
laugh,--a laugh which made the hostess at the bar start nervously, while
many of the men seated round the various tables exchanged uneasy
glances. "Accidents are accidents all the world over! Haven't you ever
been thrown out, upset, shaken in body, broken in bone, or otherwise
involved in mischief?"

Lord Wrotham smiled, and let his eyeglass fall with a click against his
top waistcoat button.

"Never!" he said, taking his cigar from his mouth, looking at it, and
then replacing it with a relish--"I'm too fond of my own life to run any
risk of losing it. Other people's lives don't matter so much, but mine
is precious! Eh, Brookfield?"

Brookfield chuckled himself purple in the face over this pleasantry, and
declared that his lordship's wit grew sharper with every day of his
existence. Meanwhile Tom o' the Gleam moved a step or two nearer to
Wrotham.

"You're a lucky lord!" he said, and again he laughed discordantly. "Very
lucky! But you don't mean to tell me that while you're pounding along at
full speed, you've never upset anything in your way?--never knocked down
an old man or woman,--never run over a dog,--or a child?"

"Oh, well, if you mean that kind of thing!" murmured Wrotham, puffing
placidly at his cigar--"Of