"All right," he concluded. "You go. It's Lombard Street to a china orange you'll never get there, and, if you do, you'll never get back. None of the band'll turn up, and if you find twenty other fools in the building to exchange colds with, you'll be lucky. To leave your home on a night like this is fairly clamouring for the special brand of trouble they keep for paralytic idiots. I've known you all too long to expect sagacity, but the instinct of self-preservation characterizes even the lower animals. What swine, for instance, would leave its cosy sty----" "How dare you?" said Daphne. "Besides, you can't say 'its.' Swine's plural." "My reference was to the fever-swine," was the cold reply. "A singular species. Comparable only with the deep-sea dip-sheep." "I think you're very unkind," said Jill, pouting. "Boy can walk in front with a lamp, and Jonah can walk behind with a lamp----" "And I can walk on both sides, I suppose, with a brazier in either hand. Oh, this is too easy." "We can but try," said I. "You can but close your ugly head," said Berry. "If you want to walk about London half the night, looking like a demobilised pantaloon, push off and do it. But don't try and rope in innocent parties." To this insult I made an appropriate reply, and the argument waxed. At length---- "There's no reason," said Jonah, "why we shouldn't go on like this for ever. If we had any sense, we should send for Fitch and desire his opinion. It's rather more valuable than any one of ours, and, after all, he's more or less interested. And you can trust him." Now, Fitch was our chauffeur. Amid a chorus of approval, I went to the telephone to speak to the garage. I was still waiting to be connected, when-- "Is that the Club?" said a voice. "No," said I. "Nothing like it." "Well, there's a bag of mine in the hall, and----" "No, there isn't," said I. "What d'you mean?" was the indignant retort. "What I say. Our hall is bagless." "I say," said the voice with laboured clarity, "I say there is a bag in the hall. A BAG. Hang it all, you know what a bag is?" "Rather," said I heartily. "What you put nuts in. An uncle of mine had one." The vehemence with which the unknown subscriber replaced his receiver was terrible to hear. Ten minutes later Fitch entered the room. "Can you get to the Albert Hall to-night, Fitch?" said Daphne. "I think so, madam. If we go slow." "Can you get back from the Albert Hall to-morrow afternoon?" said Berry. "If I can get there, sir, I can get back." "How long will it take?" "I ought to do it in 'alf an hour, sir. I can push along in the Park, where it's all straight going. It's getting along the streets as'll take the time. It's not that I won't find me way, but it's the watchin' out for the hother vehicles, so as they don't run into you." "Bit of an optimist, aren't you?" "I don't think so, sir." "Thank you, Fitch," said Daphne hastily. "Half-past nine, please." "Very good, madam." He bowed and withdrew.