"'Capital!' said I. 'Voices a tone lower, please--but keep it up, and you're husband and wife, returning from an evening at the theatre. Taxi broken down--wife peevish at having to walk remaining distance. Keep it up, and I'll undertake to steer you past half the police in London.' "Well, I steered them past two, and without a question. Not one of us knew our bearings, but we were making excellent weather of it, and at length came out by the by-streets upon a fine broad thoroughfare with an arc-lamp at the corner. "I stared up at the building on my left, against which he lamp shone. There was no street-sign at the angle, and an inscription in large gilt letters on the facade was not very hopeful--ROYAL SOUTH LONDON PICTUREDROME--yet to some extent reassuring. We were at any rate lost in London; and not in Byzantium, as we might have deduced from other architectural details. "'And yet I am not wholly sure,' said I. 'We will ask the next policeman. _Picturedrome_ now--barbaric union of West and East.-- Surely the word must be somewhere in Gibbon. Ever met it in Gibbon, Farrell?' "'No, I haven't,' he answered testily. 'Never was in Gibbon, to my knowledge. Where is it? . . . But I'll tell you what!' he wound up, fierce and sudden; 'I've met with too many policemen to-night; avenuesh, we've been passin'. Seems to me neighb'rhood infested. Not like Soho. 'Nequal dishtribush'n bobbies. 'Nequal distribush'n everything. Cursh--curse--modern shivilzash'n--damn!' "'Our taxi,' I mused, 'may have been a magic one. We are in a dream, and the Lady Petunia is part of it. She may vanish at any moment--' "But Petunia had turned about for a glance along the street behind us. Instead of vanishing, she clawed my arm sharply, suppressed a squeal, and pointed. . . . Fifty yards away stood a taxi, and two policemen beside it, flashing their lanterns over it and into its interior. "Between two flashes I recognised it. . . . It was _mine_, my Arab taxi, my beautiful, my own. . . . Farrell's fatal propensity for steering to the right had fetched us around, almost full circle. "There she stood, with her mute appealing headlights. 'Wha's matter?' asked Farrell. 'Oh, I say--Oh, come! _More_ of 'em?' "'I dragged him and Petunia back into the shadow under the side-wall of the Picturedrome, and leaned back against the edifice while I mopped my brow. My shoulder-blade encountered the sharp edge of a rainwater pipe. A bright and glorious inspiration took hold of me. Farrell had made all the running, so far: it was time for me to assert my manhood. "'Wait here,' I whispered, 'and all will be well. In three minutes--' "'Here, I say!' interposed the Lady Petunia. 'You're not going to do a bilk?'