“Have we time?” gasped Violet Lestrange with Doris’s arms about her neck. “Where are we, Mr Fanshawe?” asked little Lord Gawdor. “I don’t know,” replied Mr Fanshawe, putting his head out of the window. He looked back. On the moonlight road Mr Murphy was squatting on his hams with the old horse pistol levelled straight at General Grampound. General Grampound was dancing on the moonlit roadway before Mr Murphy, with all the grace and agility of a performing elephant. You may think it strange that any consideration would cause a retired General officer of the British Army to disgrace the moon by performing such antics before her. Well, that just shows you have never met Mr Murphy, seen his smile, or come under the profound power of his suasion. -------------- “We are near Tullagh,” said Mr Fanshawe. “I recognise that row of trees. Look! there’s the railway line and the station. The train either hasn’t arrived, or it’s gone. I can’t tell the time, I haven’t my watch.” “Put your head out,” said Violet. He did so. “Patsy!” he cried. “Yes, sir.” “You can’t see the train?” “No, sir; but it hasn’t come, we’ve tin minits to the good.” “How do you know?” shouted Mr Fanshawe “I’ve got your watch an’ chain, sir,” came Patsy’s voice. “I whipped it out of Paddy’s pocket whin he was playin’ tricks wid the ould Gineral and the handkerchief wid your money wrapped up in it. Mr Fanshawe, sir!” “Yes?” “I’ve counted the gowld, it’s all there—six suverins; and there’s fourteen shillings of Paddy’s as well.” “We must take Patsy with us,” said Mr Fanshawe, when he had communicated the news to his companions. “I always said Patsy was a brick,” said little Lord Gawdor. “Didn’t I, Doris?” “Yes,” said Doris. “Here’s the station, and there’s the station man with a lantern in his hand.” _“The dear children went back in the carriage,” wrote Mrs Fanshawe, six weeks later to a girl friend. “I could never have imagined an experience so awful and—so lovely; and the strange thing is, every one is so pleased, even old General Grampound has consented to write. It was an abusive letter, but even that’s a lot for him. I’m sure he has a good heart—somewhere._ “_I got such a lovely emerald pendant from Lady Seagrave; and, fancy, she was going to have given me a grebe muff and a prayer-book for Christmas. Little Bob told me, and I think that was partly why I ran away._ “_Poor dear Mr Murphy is going to America. Dicky is getting him out of the country through a friend. He says he’s taken an office for him in Wall Street, wherever that is. Dicky is so good—you can’t think._ “_We have Patsy with us; he has just been giving a French boy what he calls ‘buther’ in the courtyard of the hotel. Dicky says he got the remains of the French boy away from him just in time._ “_He is always fighting, but Dicky says that as long as there is a bit of him left he never intends to part with Patsy._” THE END