Page:The principal girl (IA principalgirl00snai).pdf/113

 It was a hair's-breadth escape. The young man had only just time to realize his danger, bolt across the road, almost under the very wheels of an oncoming Barnes and Hammersmith omnibus, escape a threefold death by violence at the instance of the passing motor, board a taxi, and in a voice tense with emotion beseech to be driven to Romano's.

A gin and vermouth might be said to have saved this full but chequered life.

"Called me Shel—my God! If only I'd got that long-handled, old-fashioned one with the five prongs—!"