Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/182

 I'll tell your mistress of you, and have you discharged. You—you're Miss Randolph's chauffeur, and you come here to pass yourself off as a member at a gentleman's club."

On the point of knocking him down, I decided I wouldn't, and dropped him instead like a hot chestnut. You see, he "had me on the hip"; for I am Miss Randolph's chauffeur, and there was no good denying it. In a small way it was one of the nastiest situations of my life. What "A." in Vanity Fair would have done I don't know, and I didn't know what to do myself for a minute. You see, my prophetic soul tells me that the time hasn't come to confess all and throw myself on the Goddess's mercy, as I hope it may some day; and I couldn't afford to be plunged into hot water with her when the facts would look fishy and be impossible to explain. Still, I couldn't eat humble pie with that Bounder; sooner I would have quietly killed him, and stuffed him into a hole in the links. However, a sweet little cherub of inspiration looked out for the fate of poor Jack, and whispered an alternative in my ear.

"Do you dare deny it?" Payne demanded, plucking up courage.

"I 'dare' do a good deal," said I, looking him straight in the eyes. "But I don't intend to deny it. I am Miss Randolph's chauffeur." How he had found that out I couldn't imagine.

"Then, I can tell you, you won't long remain so," blustered the fellow, as cocksure as if he were her brother, or something nearer—hang him! "A man who is capable of practising such deception isn't fit