Page:C N and A M Williamson - The Lightning Conductor.djvu/90

 "Begging your pardon, miss, I don't want to go with any Barrows."

"But you said"

"If you wished to get rid of me"

"I wish 'to get rid of you! I don't repudiate my—business arrangements in that way."

"May I stop on with you, then, miss?" I pleaded at my meekest. "I'll try and do the best I can about the car."

"Oh, do you really think there's any hope?" She clasped her hands and looked at me as if I were an oracle. Her eyelashes are very long. I wonder why they are so charming on her and so abominable on a Frenchman?

"I've got an idea in my mind, miss," said I, "that might make everything all right."

"Brown," said she, "you are a kind of leather angel."

Then we both laughed. And I am afraid it occurred to her that the ground we were touching was not calculated to bear a lady and her mécanicien, for she turned and ran away

It was not yet ten o'clock, and I had something better to do than crawl into the bed of straw that had been offered me. It was not much more than ten miles to Amboise, and opening the great gate as quietly as I could, I stepped out upon the white road and set off briskly for the town, my Plan guiding me like a big bright beacon.

What I meant to do—what I was meaning and wanting at this present moment to do—is this.

Being now at Amboise, having knocked up the