"Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!"
"Excuse me, Baron," said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow; "if you will wait here at the door I shall send up a cab."
"Goot!" cried the Baron, "a zouzand zanks!"
"I myself," added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady, "shall say good night now. The best of luck, Baron!"
In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.
"Not too qvickly!" he added, in a stage aside.
They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a marriage bell,-almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.
"Why are we going down Whitehall?" the lady exclaimed, suddenly.
"I know not," replied the Baron, placidly.
"Ask him where he is going!" she said.
The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the rea.s.suring reply, "All right, sir," came back through the hole in the roof.
"I seem to know that man"s voice," the lady said. "He must have driven me before."
"To me all ze English speak ze same," replied the Baron. "All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a-vat you call?-fiddle, is it?"
Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman"s topographical knowledge, the Baron"s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more reckless.
"Can"t you catch the reins?" cried the lady, who had got into a terrible fright.
The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the knuckles from the b.u.t.t-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady burst into tears. The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets, past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown wilderness of brick.
"Oh, don"t let him murder me!" sobbed the lady.
"Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze rascal! Parbleu und blood! G.o.ddam! Vait till I catch him, h.e.l.l and blitzen! Haf courage, dear!"
"Oh dear, oh dear!" wailed the lady. "I shall _never_ do it again!"
They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was rubbing his head some yards in front.
"Teufel!" exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet. "Ach, mine dearest vun, art thou hurt?"
The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she burst into hysterical laughter.
"Ach, zo," said the Baron, much relieved, "zen vill I see ze cabman."
That individual was still rubbing his head with a rueful air, and the Baron was about to pour forth all his bottled-up indignation, when at the sight of the driver"s face he started back in blank astonishment.
"Bonker!"
"It is I indeed, my dear Baron," replied that gentleman, politely. "I must ask a thousand pardons for causing you this trifling inconvenience. As to your friend, I don"t know how I am to make my peace with her."
"Bot-bot vat means zis?" gasped the Baron.
"I was merely endeavouring to provide the spice of romance you required, besides giving you the opportunity of making the lady"s better acquaintance. Can I do anything more for you, Baron? And you, my dear lady, can I a.s.sist you in any way?"
Both, speaking at once and with some heat, gave a decidedly affirmative answer.
"Where are we?" asked the lady, who hovered between fright and indignation.
Mr Bunker shrugged his shoulders.
"It would be rash to hazard an opinion," he replied.
"Well!" cried the lady, her indignation quite overcoming her fright. "Do you mean to say you"ve brought us here against our wills and probably got me into _dreadful_ trouble, and you don"t even know where we are?"
Mr Bunker looked up at the heavens with a studious air.
"One _ought_ to be able to tell something of our whereabouts from one of those stars," he replied; "but, to tell the truth, I don"t quite know which. In short, madame, it is not from want of goodwill, but merely through ignorance, that I cannot direct you."
The lady turned impatiently to the Baron.
"_You"ve_ helped to get me into this mess," she said, tartly. "What do you propose to do?"
"My fairest--"
"Don"t!" she interrupted, stamping her foot on the frosty road, and then inconsequently burst into tears. The Baron and Mr Bunker looked at one another.
"It is a fine night for a walk, and the cab, I"m afraid, is smashed beyond hope of redemption. Give the lady your arm, Baron; we must eventually arrive somewhere."
There was really nothing else for it, so leaving the horse and cab to be recovered by the first policeman who chanced to pa.s.s, they set out on foot. At last, after half an hour"s ramble through the solitudes of South London, a belated cab was hailed and all three got inside. Once on her way home, the lady"s indignation again gave way to fright.
"What _am_ I to do? What _am_ I to do?" she wailed. "Oh, whatever will my husband say?"
In his most confident and irresistible manner Mr Bunker told her he would make matters all right for her at whatever cost to himself; and so infectious was his a.s.surance, that, when at last they reached Eaton Square, she allowed him to come up to the door of number 602. The Baron prudently remained in the cab, for, as he explained, "My English, he is unsafe."
After a prolonged knocking and ringing the door at length opened, and an irascible-looking, middle-aged gentleman appeared, arrayed in a dressing-gown.
"Louisa!" he cried. "What the dev-where on earth have you been? The police are looking for you all over London. And may I venture to ask who this is with you?"
Mr Bunker bowed slightly and raised his hat.
"My dear sir," he said, "we found this lady in a lamentable state of intoxication in the Tottenham Court Road, and as I understand you have a kind of reversionary interest in her, we have brought her here. As for you, sir, your appearance is so unprepossessing that I am unable to remain any longer. Good night," and raising his hat again he entered the cab and drove off, a.s.suring the Baron that matters were satisfactorily arranged.
"So you have had your adventure, Baron," he added, with a smile.
For a minute or two the Baron was silent. Then he broke into a cheerful guffaw, "Ha, ha, ha! You are a fonny devil, Bonker! Ach, bot it vas pleasant vile it lasted!"