coach him about that Japanese
war business, or else there might be trouble! So I leaned over the back
seat and gently broke it to him. I thought I had managed it rather well.
I felt sure he could understand, I said, the absolute need of a
little--embellishing and--

"Let me out," he said.

I feverishly went on explaining.

"If you don't let me out I'll climb out," he said, and began to make as
good as his word over the tonneau.

Of course, there was nothing for it but to stop the car.

Jones deliberately descended and headed for New York.

I ran after him, while the chauffeur turned the car round and slowly
followed us both. It was a queer procession. First Jones, then I, then
the car.

Finally I overtook him.

"Jones," I panted. "Jones."

He muttered something about Ananias, and speeded up.

"But it was an awfully tight place," I pleaded. "Something had to be
done; you must make allowances; it was the first thing that came into
my head--and you must admit that it worked, Jones. Didn't she send you
the locket? Didn't she--?"

"What a prancing, show-off, matinee fool you've made me look!" he burst
out. "I have an old mother to support. I have an increasing practice. I
have already attracted some little attention in my chosen field--eye,
ear and throat. A nice figure I'd cut, traipsing around the battlefields
in a kimono, and looking for a kindly bullet to lay me low. If I were
ever tempted by such a thing--which God forbid--wouldn't I prefer to
spread bacilli on buttered toast?"

"I never thought of that," I said humbly.

"I have known retail liars," he went on. "But I guess you are the only
wholesaler in the business. When other people are content with ones and
twos, you get them out in grosses, packed for export!"

He went on slamming me like this for miles. Anybody else would have
given him up as hopeless. I don't want to praise myself, but if I have
one good quality it's staying power. I pleaded and argued, and
expostulated and explained, with the determination of a man whose back
is to the wall. I wasn't going to lose Freddy so long as there was
breath in my body. However, it wasn't the least good in the world. Jones
was as impervious as sole-leather, and as unshaken as a marble pillar.

Then I played my last card.

I told him the truth! Not the _whole_ truth, of course, but within ten
per cent. of it. About Freddy, you know, and how she was determined not
to marry before her elder sister, and