oming little shrug of her shoulders and a
captivating lift of her eyebrows.

"Ah, vat indeed? He desairves not so fair a consort."

"But won't it be troubling you?"

"Trouble? Pleasure and captivation!"

"Excuse me, Baron," said the voice of Mr Bunker at his elbow; "if you will
wait here at the door I shall send up a cab."

"Goot!" cried the Baron, "a zouzand zanks!"

"I myself," added Mr Bunker, with a profound bow to the lady, "shall say
good night now. The best of luck, Baron!"

In a few minutes a hansom drove up, and the Baron, springing in beside his
charge, told the man to drive to 602 Eaton Square.

"Not too qvickly!" he added, in a stage aside.

They reached Trafalgar Square, matters inside going harmoniously as a
marriage bell,--almost, in fact, too much suggesting that simile.

"Why are we going down Whitehall?" the lady exclaimed, suddenly.

"I know not," replied the Baron, placidly.

"Ask him where he is going!" she said.

The Baron, as in duty bound, asked, and the reassuring reply, "All right,
sir," came back through the hole in the roof.

"I seem to know that man's voice," the lady said. "He must have driven me
before."

"To me all ze English speak ze same," replied the Baron. "All bot you, my
fairest, viz your sound like a--vat you call?--fiddle, is it?"

Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman's
topographical knowledge, the Baron's company proved so absorbing that it
was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she
at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most
approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel
concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the
driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more
reckless.

"Can't you catch the reins?" cried the lady, who had got into a terrible
fright.

The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the
knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady
burst into tears. The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still
the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets,
past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown
wilderness of brick.

"Oh, don't let him murder me!" sobbed the lady.

"Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze
rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch h