I have taken more than is going to be good for
me--a subtle difference which I won't pause here and now to explain.
It's a kindly suggestion of yours," said I; 'but I put it to you that
it's time for good little Progressives to be in their beds, and
you'll just take a taxi from the rank on the slope, trundle home to
Wimbledon and go bye-bye.'

"Farrell wasn't listening. He had his shoulders planted against a
pillar of the portico, and had fallen into a brown study, staring in
upon the giddy throng.

"'When we look,' said he slowly, like an orator in a dream--'when we
are privileged to contemplate, as we are at this moment, such a
spectacle of the idle Ritz--excuse me, the idle Rich--and their
goings on, and countless poor folk in the East End with nothing
but a herring--if that--between them and to-morrow's sunrise--
well, I don't know how it strikes you, but to me it is an Object
Lesson. You'll excuse me, Mr.--I haven't the pleasure to remember
your name at this moment. I connect it with my Maria's two
pianners--something between the Broadwood and the Collard and
Collard--you'll excuse me, but putting myself in the place of the
angel Gabriel, merely for the sake of argument, this is the sort of
way it would take _me_!'

"Before I could jump for him, Otty, he lifted his hand and flung
something--I don't know what it was, for a certainty, but I believe
it was the 'Blanco' tin of sulphuretted hydrogen, that he had been
nursing all the way from the 'Catalafina.' . . . At any rate the
missile hit. There was an agreeable crash of plate glass, and we ran
for our lives.

"You know the long rank of taxis on the slope of Piccadilly.
We pelted for it. Before an alarm whistle sounded I had gained the
fifth in the row. The drivers were all gathered in their shelter,
probably discussing politics. I made for a car, cried to Farrell to
jump in, hoicked up the works like mad, and made a spring for the
seat and the steering-gear. Amid the alarm-whistles sounding from
the Ritz I seemed to catch a shrill scream close behind me, and
looked around to make sure that my man was inside. The door
slammed-to, and I steered out for a fair roadway.

"There was a certain amount of outcry in the rear. But I opened-out
down the slope and soon had it well astern. We sailed past Hyde Park
Corner, down Knightsbridge, and cut along Brompton Road into Fulham
Road, and rounded into King's Road, cutting the kerb a trifle too
fine. Speed