FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138  
139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>  
t was knocked away, and the entire load that the van was carrying was pitched over and fell a little way into the pool. In a couple of minutes the giant trout was flapping and twisting on bare mud at the bottom of a waterless pool, and my uncle was able to walk down to him and fold him to his breast. The van-load consisted of blotting-paper, and every drop of water in that pool had been sucked up into the mass of spilt cargo." There was silence for nearly half a minute in the smoking-room, and Treddleford began to let his mind steal back towards the golden road that led to Samarkand. Amblecope, however, rallied, and remarked in a rather tired and dispirited voice: "Talking of motor accidents, the narrowest squeak I ever had was the other day, motoring with old Tommy Yarby in North Wales. Awfully good sort, old Yarby, thorough good sportsman, and the best--" "It was in North Wales," said Treddleford, "that my sister met with her sensational carriage accident last year. She was on her way to a garden- party at Lady Nineveh's, about the only garden-party that ever comes to pass in those parts in the course of the year, and therefore a thing that she would have been very sorry to miss. She was driving a young horse that she'd only bought a week or two previously, warranted to be perfectly steady with motor traffic, bicycles, and other common objects of the roadside. The animal lived up to its reputation, and passed the most explosive of motor-bikes with an indifference that almost amounted to apathy. However, I suppose we all draw the line somewhere, and this particular cob drew it at travelling wild beast shows. Of course my sister didn't know that, but she knew it very distinctly when she turned a sharp corner and found herself in a mixed company of camels, piebald horses, and canary-coloured vans. The dogcart was overturned in a ditch and kicked to splinters, and the cob went home across country. Neither my sister nor the groom was hurt, but the problem of how to get to the Nineveh garden-party, some three miles distant, seemed rather difficult to solve; once there, of course, my sister would easily find some one to drive her home. 'I suppose you wouldn't care for the loan of a couple of my camels?' the showman suggested, in humorous sympathy. 'I would,' said my sister, who had ridden camel-back in Egypt, and she overruled the objections of the groom, who hadn't. She picked out two of the most presenta
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   137   138  
139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   >>  



Top keywords:
sister
 

garden

 

camels

 

Treddleford

 

Nineveh

 
suppose
 
couple
 

carrying

 
piebald
 

distinctly


turned

 

company

 
travelling
 

corner

 
indifference
 

amounted

 
explosive
 
reputation
 

passed

 

apathy


However

 

horses

 

pitched

 

wouldn

 

showman

 

suggested

 

easily

 

humorous

 

sympathy

 

picked


presenta

 
objections
 

overruled

 

knocked

 

ridden

 
splinters
 

country

 
Neither
 

kicked

 
coloured

animal
 

dogcart

 
overturned
 
entire
 

distant

 

difficult

 
problem
 

canary

 
bicycles
 

Talking