ab, and----"

Here the taxi-driver bethought himself, and grinned vacuously.

"Well--an' here I am," he concluded.

"I suppose he handed out a good fare," said his wife.

"Yes, he was quite decent about it. Tipped me a couple of dollars over
an' above the register."

"I should have thought it would have been more. Men are usually
generous when they are getting married."

"He was takin' on a rather expensive bit of stuff, unless I am much
mistaken, an' p'raps he was just rememberin' it."

In this ingenuous fashion was a poor woman neatly headed off the scent
of a fifty-dollar bill. She rang the knell of a new hat by her next
question.

"What was the young lady really like--how was she dressed?" she cried.
. . .

Hardly a word was said within the taxi until the corner was turned out
of 56th Street into Seventh Avenue. Curtis, who was sitting with his
back to the driver, rose, apologized for the disturbance, and looked
through the tiny rear window.

"That's all right," he said. "That car won't be able to move for
several minutes; but we must leave nothing to chance," so he sank back
into a seat, and permitted the driver to take them whither he listed.

Hermione's first words were not exactly those of a fair maid in utmost
distress.

"Oh, how splendid it must be to feel sure that you are able to hit a
wretch like Count Vassilan and knock him flat!" she cried.

Curtis was surprised. He could not see her kindling eyes, her parted
lips, the color which was suffusing forehead and cheeks, and he rather
expected to hear subdued sobbing.

"I should hate to have you dislike me as thoroughly as you dislike that
fellow," he said.

"I never could. It cannot be in your nature to treat women as he
treats them. I do hope you have hurt him."

"I am certain of that, at any rate," laughed Curtis. "He impressed me
as weighing a hundred and ninety pounds or thereabouts, and, if it will
afford you the slightest gratification, I'll take the first opportunity
to work out the approximate force required to drive back a moving body
of that weight while traveling forward, say, fifteen miles an hour.
There are angles of resistance to be calculated, too, so it offers a
decent problem. Meanwhile, the vital question is--where are we going?"

Hermione was easily chaffed out of her bellicose mood. He could
picture the droop in the corners of her mouth as she said forlornly:

"I do not know."

"It is evident," he went