now what I was saying.

Then at last he gave me my chance. He half tripped over a little table
and his face stuck forward. I got him on the point of the chin, and
put every ounce of weight I possessed behind the blow. He crumpled up
in a heap and rolled over, upsetting a lamp and knocking a big china
jar in two. His head, I remember, lay under the escritoire from which
he had taken my passport.

I picked up the key and unlocked the door. In one of the gilded
mirrors I smoothed my hair and tidied up my clothes. My anger had
completely gone and I had no particular ill-will left against Stumm.
He was a man of remarkable qualities, which would have brought him to
the highest distinction in the Stone Age. But for all that he and his
kind were back numbers.

I stepped out of the room, locked the door behind me, and started out
on the second stage of my travels.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Christmastide

Everything depended on whether the servant was in the hall. I had put
Stumm to sleep for a bit, but I couldn't flatter myself he would long
be quiet, and when he came to he would kick the locked door to
matchwood. I must get out of the house without a minute's delay, and
if the door was shut and the old man gone to bed I was done.

I met him at the foot of the stairs, carrying a candle.

'Your master wants me to send off an important telegram. Where is the
nearest office? There's one in the village, isn't there?' I spoke in
my best German, the first time I had used the tongue since I crossed
the frontier.

'The village is five minutes off at the foot of the avenue,' he said.
'Will you be long, sir?'

'I'll be back in a quarter of an hour,' I said. 'Don't lock up till I
get in.'

I put on my ulster and walked out into a clear starry night. My bag I
left lying on a settle in the hall. There was nothing in it to
compromise me, but I wished I could have got a toothbrush and some
tobacco out of it.

So began one of the craziest escapades you can well imagine. I
couldn't stop to think of the future yet, but must take one step at a
time. I ran down the avenue, my feet cracking on the hard snow,
planning hard my programme for the next hour.

I found the village--half a dozen houses with one biggish place that
looked like an inn. The moon was rising, and as I approached I saw
that there was some kind of a store. A funny little two-seated car was
purring before the door, and I guessed this was also the telegrap