The Princess Passes

								

"little things she wanted, which she really thought she had better
buy." I fancy that the little things were shoes; anyhow, it was to be
Jack's blissful privilege to help her choose them, and he was of
opinion (probably founded on experience) that it would take nearly
all day. I decided to call on a man at the Embassy, ask him out to
lunch, and do him very well. I had not seen him for years, and he had
bored me to extinction the last time we met; but it had come to my
ears that he had been in love with Helen Blantock, and proposed to
her, so I felt that there would be a certain charm in his society.
Later, there was a "little thing" which I, too, wished to buy (though
I did not intend to seek it in the Rue de la Paix), and then I was to
meet Molly and Jack about tea time at our hotel, in time to arrange
for dining out somewhere.
After all, the man was more boring than ever, as he had got himself
engaged to another girl, and insisted upon talking of her, instead of
Helen. My one pleasure in the day, therefore, lay in purchasing the
article of which I had fixed my mind after driving yesterday. This was
a water pistol, warranted to keep dogs at bay, in motoring. I had some
difficulty in obtaining it, and when I did, it was expensive, but I
was rewarded by the thought of the pleasure my acquisition would
afford my friends. The wild dashes of dogs in front of the wheels gave
Molly such frequent starts of anguish, that I wondered Jack had not
thought of this simple preventive, and I congratulated myself on
having remembered an advertisement of the weapon which I had seen in
some magazine. It was, I thought, rather clever of me to remember,
since in those days motors had been no affair of mine; but then, the
illustration had been striking, in every sense of the word. It had
represented a lovely girl, with hair unbound, saving from destruction
the automobile in which she sat with several companions, by shooting a
fierce blast of water into the face of a huge beast well-nigh as
terrible as Cerberus. I determined to surprise Jack and Molly, when
the right time should come; accordingly, the moment I reached our
hotel, I filled the pistol with water, and placed it, thus loaded, in
the pocket of my motoring coat ready for emergencies. Hardly had I
made this preparation for the future when I discovered on the table a
note addressed to me in Winston's handwriting.
"Dear Monty," I read, "Molly and I have a bet on. She has bet me a
dinner that you will drive her car out to Madrid, and meet us at
half-past seven, so that we can have the dinner by daylight. I have
bet her the same dinner that you won't. Which of us must pay?--Yours,
Jack."
I whistled. What, drive the car through the traffic of Paris? It must
be a joke. Of course it was a joke, but----
When I had dressed for dinner, I strolled over to the garage not far
away where the creature lurked. Anyhow, I would have a look at her,
and see what orders Gotteland had received. Yes, of course it was a