on sufferance, as a friend of Colonel Ross. She never asked
_me_ to put my name in her autograph-book. But I have done a bit of the
jackal for her once or twice, when I happened to be on leave; and she
has sent me with people to her box at Covent Garden when she couldn't go
herself."

"And how am I to propitiate her? What am I to do?"

"She will soon let you know how you strike her. Either she will pet you,
or she will snuff you out like winking. I don't know a woman who has a
blanker stare, when she likes."

This idle conversation was suddenly interrupted. At the same moment both
young men experienced a sinking sensation, as if the earth had been cut
away from beneath their feet; then there was a crash, and they were
violently thrown against each other; then they vaguely knew that the
cab, heeling over, was being jolted along the street by a runaway horse.
Fortunately, the horse could not run very fast, for the axle-tree,
deprived of its wheel, was tearing at the road; but, all the same, the
occupants of the cab thought they might as well get out, and so they
tried to force open the two small panels of the door in front of them.
But the concussion had so jammed these together that, shove at them as
they might, they would not yield. At this juncture, Macleod, who was not
accustomed to hansom cabs, and did not at all like this first experience
of them, determined to get out somehow; and so he raised himself a bit,
so as to get his back firm against the back of the vehicle; he pulled up
his leg until his knee almost touched his mouth; he got the heel of his
boot firmly fixed on the top edge of the door: and then with one forward
drive he tore the panel right away from its hinges. The other was of
course flung open at once. Then he grasped the brass rail outside,
steadied himself for a moment, and jumped clear from the cab, lighting
on the pavement. Strange to say, Ogilvie did not follow, though Macleod,
as he rushed along to try to get hold of the horse, momentarily expected
to see him jump out. His anxiety was of short duration. The axle-tree
caught on the curb; there was a sudden lurch; and then, with a crash of
glass, the cab went right over, throwing down the horse, and pitching
the driver into the street. It was all the work of a few seconds; and
another second seemed to suffice to collect a crowd, even in this quiet
part of Kensington Gore. But, after all, very little damage was done,
except to the horse, which h