Page:A Damsel in Distress.pdf/57

 that you had got into the cab. He was a fellow with the appearance of a before-using advertisement of an antifat medicine and the manners of ring-tailed chimpanzee.”

The girl nodded.

“Then it was Percy! I knew I wasn’t mistaken.”

“Percy?”

“That is his name.”

“It would be! I could have betted on it.”

“What happened then?”

“I reasoned with the man, but didn’t seem to soothe him, and finally he made a grab for the door handle, so I knocked off his hat, and while he was retrieving it was moved on and escaped.”

The girl gave another silver peal of laughter.

“Oh, what a shame I couldn’t see it! But how resourceful of you! How did you happen to think of it?”

“It just came to me,” said George modestly.

A serious look came into the girl’s face. The smile died out of her eyes. She shivered.

“When I think how some men might have behaved in your place!”

“Oh, no. Any man would have done just what I did. Surely, knocking off Percy’s hat was an act of simple courtesy which anyone would have performed automatically!”’

“You might have been some awful bounder! Or, what would have been almost worse, a slow-witted idiot who would have stopped to ask questions before doing anything! To think I should have had the luck to pick you out of all London!”

“I’ve been looking on it as a piece of luck—but entirely from my viewpoint.”