Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/179

 keeping the road, and lent my car to my old friend Montie—Lord Lane, don't you know, who's running it about the Riviera now."

Aha, my boy, does that make you sit up? I assure you it did me. And if, just before, I hadn't heard the gentleman discoursing on the pleasures of a certain trip taken with Burford at a date when you and Burford and I happened to be together, I should have sat still straighter. I might have said to myself, "So all is discovered. My Montie—or rather his Montie—has taken a leaf out of Brown's book, and instead of stuffing himself with fresh air and eggs at Davos, is flashing about the Riviera in his dear chum's Panhard, which he must have lately learnt to drive, as he didn't know gearing from belts when I saw him last." As it is, however, I assure you no such suspicions are at present keeping me awake; I've enough worries of my own to do that.

But Fauntleroy-Holmes was continuing, and I sat in my obscure corner inhaling his tobacco smoke and his equally ephemeral anecdotes

"I am going on to Nice myself in a day or two, with some ladies, on their motor-car," said he. "Very good car, I believe; one of the ladies very handsome. She has a chauffeur, of course, but I shall drive and let him do the dirty work. I fancy I shall be able to show my friend something in the way of driving. She wants to learn, and ought to have good instruction to begin with; one never recovers form if taught bad ways at first."

I lay low, like Brer Rabbit, but my ears were burning. He'd named no names, and I had no