Adventure stories; Imaginary places -- Fiction; Kings and rulers -- Fiction; London (England) -- Fiction; Love stories
Tony laughed. "All right, Aunt Fanny," he said. "I can promise you
that safely."
He walked to the window and glanced down into Chester Square where a
huge venomous-looking, two-seated Peugot was filling up the roadway.
"I must toddle away now," he observed. "I want to run up to the
Club, and see that everything's all right for to-morrow night, and
then I must get back home and change. I have promised to go to this
fancy dress dance at the Albert Hall, and it will take me a long time
to look like Charles the Second."
Lady Jocelyn leaned forward and rang the bell. "Come and see me
again some day, Tony," she said, "when you have nothing better to do.
I shall be home till the end of July, at all events."
Tony bent down and kissed her affectionately. "I shall often be
dropping in if I may," he said. "I am always in scrapes you know,
Aunt Fanny, and you are about the only person I can look to for a
little sympathy and encouragement."
"If my moral support is of any use, Tony," she said, "you can count
on it to the utmost."
Outside the house a small crowd of loafers and errand boys had
gathered round the car, which with its enormous strapped bonnet and
disk wheels looked singularly out of place in this trim, respectable
neighbourhood.
"Wotyer call that, guv'nor?" inquired one of them. "A cycle car?"
"It's the new Baby Peugot," replied Tony gravely.
He started up the engine, and climbing into the seat, disappeared
round the corner, followed by the admiring glances of his audience.
The Cosmopolitan Club, the headquarters of British pugilism, is
situated in Covent Garden. It is regarded by some excellent people
as a plague spot that will eventually be wiped away by the rising
flood of a more humanized civilization, but this opinion can hardly
be said to represent the views of the porter and carmen who frequent
the vicinity. To them the Club represents all that is best and
brightest in English civilization, and amongst its numerous and oddly
assorted members nobody could claim to be better known or more
popular than Tony.
As the big car picked its way over the cobbles, twisting neatly in
and out between unattended carts and piles of empty baskets, a good
number of the men who were lounging about greeted the owner with a
friendly salute. When he reached the Club and pulled up, several of
them stepped forward eagerly to open the door.
"'Ow abaht ter-morrer, sir," inquired one huge, hoarse-voiced carter.
"Sife to shove a bit on Tiger?"
"You can shove your horse and cart on him," said Tony, "and if it
doesn't come off I'll buy you another."
He jumped out and crossed the pavement, followed by an approving
murmur from everyone who had heard his offer.
The carter spat decisively into the gutter. "E's a ruddy nobleman,
'e is," he observed, looking round the group with a bloodshot eye.
"'Oo says 'e ain't?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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