eflect, will see that you did yeoman's service. But what is
to happen now? I suppose we're not safe from trouble yet, and we don't
deserve to be."

I thought it rather sporting of her to say "we," when all the bother was
due to the conceit and cocksureness of one person.

"No, miss, we don't deserve to be, if you'll excuse the liberty," I
meekly replied. "We had no business charging along a crowded road the
way we did. I'm sure, until to-day, we've never had anything but
courtesy from people of all classes. It isn't often French peasants
misbehave themselves, and to-day most of the wrong was on our side,
though it's true that their horse was skittish; and being market-day, I
daresay they'd taken a little more red wine than was good for them. The
wine of this country is apt to go to the head."

I spoke to Miss Randolph, but _at_ Jimmy, especially when I gave that
dig about the wine. I finished my tirade and my work on the silencer at
the same time, and it was then that my triumph came. Instead of getting
back on the car, I stood still in the road.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Miss Randolph.

"For Mr. Payne to take his place in the driver's seat," said I.

At this he half jumped up in the _tonneau_, but Miss Randolph hurriedly
exclaimed, "Oh, I think you had better drive for a while, Brown. I want
to talk to you, and ask you what to do, and what will happen next."
Little Lord Fauntleroy, with every Sherlockian characteristic
temporarily obliterated, sat down again in the _tonneau_ pouting.

We had not wasted five minutes, and now we sprang forward at a good
speed for Carcassonne.

"What will happen next," I said, answering Miss Randolph's question,
"may be this. If the peasants are angry enough to take the trouble and
risk, all they have to do is to go to the police-station in the nearest
village and give information against us, when a wire with a description
of us and the car will raise the whole country so that we shall not be
safe anywhere."

"Oh, my gracious!" the poor child exclaimed. "What are we to do? Aunt
Mary and I have other hats and jackets and things in our car-luggage.
Couldn't we change, so as to look quite different, and buy a lot of--of
Aspinall, or something in the next village before they've had time to
give the alarm, and paint the poor car a bright scarlet? Then we should
get through and no one would know."

I couldn't help laughing, though really her suggestion wasn't so
fantastic a