"Let us try," said Captain Kydd, and incontinently fell down an area into somebody's kitchen yard and disappeared into chaos. When he had climbed out again we heard a something on wheels swearing even worse than Captain Kydd was, all among the railings of a square. So we shouted, and presently a four-wheeler drove gracefully on to the pavement. "I'm trying to get 'ome," said the cabby. "But if you gents make it worth while ... though heaven knows 'ow we ever shall. Guess 'arf a crown apiece might ... and any'ow I won't promise anywheres in particular." The cabby kept his word nobly. He did not find anywheres in particular, but he found several places. First he discovered a pavement kerb and drove pressing his wheel against it till we came to a lamp-post, and that we hit grievously. Then he came to what ought to have been a corner, but was a 'bus, and we embraced the thing amid terrific language. Then he sailed out into nothing at all--blank fog--and there he commended himself to heaven and his horse to the other place, while the eminent novelist put his head out of the window and gave directions. I begin to understand now why the eminent novelist's villains are so lifelike and his plots so obscure. He has a marvellous breadth of speech, but no ingenuity in directing the course of events. We drove into the island of refuge near the Brompton Oratory just when he was telling the cabby to be sure and avoid the Regents' Park Canal. Then we began to talk about the weather and Mister Gladstone. If an Englishman is unhappy he always talks about Mister Gladstone in terms of reproof. The eminent novelist was a socialistic-Neo-Plastic-Unionistic-Demagoglot Radical of the Extreme Left, and that is the latest novelty of the thing yet invented. He withdrew his head to answer Captain Kydd's arguments, which were forcible. "Well, you'll admit he's all sorts of a madman," said Captain Kydd sweetly. "He's a saint," said the eminent novelist, "and he moves in an atmosphere that you and those like you cannot breathe." "Yes, I always said it was a pretty thick fog. Now I know it's as thick as this one. I say, we're on the pavement again; we shall be in a shop in a minute," said Captain Kydd. But I wanted to see the eminent novelist fight, so I reintroduced Mister Gladstone while the cab crawled up a wall. "It's not exactly a wholesome atmosphere," said Captain Kydd when the novelist had finished speaking. "That reminds me of a story--perfectly true story. In the old days, before he went off his chump--" "Yah-h-h!" said the eminent novelist, wrapping himself in his Inverness.