During this eulogy Jonah had been busy transferring the hat-boxes from
the Rolls, and two minutes later the mechanics had been given their
instructions, and we were ready to start.

I took the wheel, with Jonah sitting beside me. Daphne and Jill sat upon
the back seat, and Berry, in a standing position, Nobby, the hat-boxes,
and the buttonholes more than occupied the remaining space.

"Right behind?" I inquired.

"Anything but," said Berry. "Still, the door that will shut is closed,
so carry on."

As tenderly as I could, I let In the clutch.

Instantly, with a frightful jerk, the car leapt forward.

As it did so, Berry lost his balance and, with a yell of apprehension,
fell heavily into the welter of hat-and bandboxes, the cardboard of
which gave right and left. Construing his involuntary action as the
demonstration of a new game, Nobby immediately leaped barking upon him
and began to lick his face. Daphne and Jill clung to one another,
convulsed with merriment and emitting such tremulous wails of laughter
as the function of breathing would permit, while, with tears coursing
down his cheeks, Jonah was trying to bellow a coherent description of
the catastrophe into my ear. And all the time the good old car ground
raving along the road, heaving herself over the macadam in a sickening
series of lurches, to every one of which we found ourselves reluctantly
compelled to conform....

The bride was ten minutes late, and we beat her by a short head. As we
were ushered, breathing heavily, into our places, there was a tell-tale
stir at the porch, uprose the strains of a well-known hymn, the
bridegroom glanced round and gave slightly at the knees, and the next
moment his future wife had entered the aisle.

Furtively I felt my collar and wiped the perspiration from my face....
It was with something of a shock that, as the echoes of the "Amen" died
away, I heard a familiar growl.

Hastily I turned in my seat to see Nobby three paces away. With back
arched, one fore-paw raised, and his white teeth bared, he was regarding
the trousers of an amateur sidesman, who had set a foot upon the broken
string which trailed from his collar, with a menacing glare....

By the time I had bestowed the terrier under lock and key and returned
to the church, Madrigal was signing her maiden name for the last time.

* * * * *

Five days later Berry received the following letter:--

_SIR,_

_Mr. Douglas Bl