My Friend the Chauffeur | Page 3

down more easily, poor old boy. But you swore to bolt the next dose
without a groan. I said I'd try and think of a better plan than selling
your Panhard, and going out to help work an African farm on the

proceeds. Well, I have thought of a plan, and there you have the proof
of my combined solicitude and ingenuity, in my own paper."
"Don't shoot off big words at me."
"I'm a journalist; my father before me was a journalist, and got his silly
old baronetcy by being a journalist. I'm one still, and have saved up
quite a little competency on big words and potted phrases. I've
collected a great many practical ideas in my experience. I want to make
you a present of some of them, if only you'll have them."
"Do you call this advertisement a practical idea? You can't for a minute
suppose that I'd be found dead carting a lot of American or other
women whom I don't know about Europe in my car, and taking their
beastly money?"
"If you drove properly, you wouldn't be found dead; and you would
know them," I had begun, when there was a ring at the gate bell, and
the high wall of the garden abruptly opened to admit a tidal wave of
chiffon and muslin.
Terry and I were both so taken aback at this unexpected inundation that
for a moment we lay still in our chairs and stared, with our hats tipped
over our eyes and our pipes in our mouths. We were not accustomed to
afternoon calls or any other time-of-day calls from chiffon and muslin
at the Châlet des Pins, therefore our first impression was that the tidal
wave had overflowed through my gate by mistake, and would promptly
retire in disorder at sight of us. But not at all. It swept up the path, in
pink, pale green, and white billows, frothing at the edges with lace.
There was a lot of it--a bewildering lot. It was all train, and big, flowery
hats, and wonderful transparent parasols, which you felt you ought to
see through, and couldn't. Before it was upon us, Terry and I had
sprung up in self-defence, our pipes burning holes in our pockets, our
Panamas in our hands.
Now the inundation divided itself into separate wavelets, the last
lagging behind, crested by a foaming parasol, which hid all details,

except a general white muslin filminess. But Terry and I had not much
chance to observe the third billow. Our attention was caught by the first
glittering rush of pink and emerald spray.
Out of it a voice spoke--an American voice; and then, with a lacy whirl,
a parasol rose like a stage curtain. The green wave was a lady; a
marvellous lady. The pink wave was a child with a brown face, two
long brown plaits, and pink silk legs, also pink shoes.
"We've come in answer to X. Y. Z.'s advertisement in this morning's
Riviera Sun. Now which of you two gentlemen put it in?" began the
lady, with gay coquetry which played over each of us in turn. Oh yes,
she was wonderful. She had hair of the brightest auburn that ever
crowned a human head. It was done in undulations, with a fat ring in
the middle of her forehead, between two beautifully arched black
eyebrows. Her skin was very white, her cheeks were very pink, and her
lips were very coralline. Everything about her was "very." Out of a
plump face, with a small nose that turned up and a chin which was
over-round, looked a pair of big, good-natured, nondescript-coloured
eyes, and flashed a pair of pleasant dimples. At first glance you said "a
stout girl of twenty-five." At the second, you were not sure that the lady
wasn't ten years older. But her waist was so slender that she panted a
little in coming up the path, though the path was by no means steep,
and her heels were so high that there was a suspicion of limp in her
walk.
Even to me the lady and her announcement gave a shock, which must
have doubled its effect upon Terry. I was collecting my forces for a
reply when the little brown girl giggled, and I lost myself again. It was
only for an instant, but Terry basely took advantage of that instant in a
way of which I would not have believed him capable.
"You must address yourself to my friend, Sir Ralph Moray," said the
wretched fellow glibly. "His are the car and the title mentioned in the
advertisement of The Riviera Sun, which he owns."
My title indeed! A baronetical crumb flung to my father because of a
service to his political party. It had never done anything for