from the restaurant building to find the street bare of
any sort of hirable conveyance and himself in a fret too exacting to
consider walking to the Plaza or taking a street-car thither. Nothing
less than a taxicab--and that, one with a speed-mad chauffeur--would
satisfy his impatient humour.

And indeed, if there were a grain of truth in his suspicions, formless
though in a measure they remained, he had not an instant to lose.

But on the way to the Bizarre from Peter Kenny's rooms, some freak of
a mind superficially preoccupied had caused him to remark, on the
south side of Forty-third Street, immediately east of Sixth Avenue, a
long rank of buildings which an utilitarian age had humbled from their
once proud estate of private stables to the lowlier degree of quarters
for motor vehicles both public and private.

Of these one building boasted the blazing electric announcement: "_ALL
NIGHT GARAGE_."

Into this last P. Sybarite pelted at the top of his speed and pulled
up puffing, to stare nervously round a place gloomy, cavernous, and
pungent with fragrance of oil, rubber, and gasoline. Here and there
lonely electric bulbs made visible somnolent ranks of motor-cars. Out
of the shadows behind him, presently, came a voice drawling:

"You certainly do take on like you'd lost a power of trouble."

P. Sybarite whirled round as if stung. The speaker occupied a chair
tilted back against the wall, his feet on the rungs, a cigarette
smouldering between his lips in open contempt of the regulations of
the Fire Department and all other admonitions of ordinary
common-sense.

"What can I do for you?" he resumed, nothing about him stirring save
eyes that twinkled as they travelled from head to foot of the odd and
striking figure P. Sybarite presented as _Beelzebub, Knight Errant_.

"Taxi!" the little man panted vociferously.

The other yawned and stretched. "It can't be done," he admitted
fairly. "They ain't no such animal on the premises."

With a gesture P. Sybarite singled out the nearest car.

"What's that?" he demanded angrily.

Shading his eyes, the man examined it with growing wonder which
presently found expression: "As I live, it's an autymobeel!"

"Damn your sense of humour!" stormed P. Sybarite. "What's the matter
with that car?"

"As man to man--nothing."

"Why can't I have it?"

"Ten dollars an hour--"

"I'll take it."

"But you _asked_ for a taxi," grumbled the man, rising to press a
button. Where