“The car is in the garage close to this. I dare say you would like to take her out for a run and try her? I shall want you this evening at seven o’clock.”
“Very well,” he agreed.
“I suppose you’re one of these gentlemen that have come down in the world, and, of course, a chauffeur has a ripping good time. I like your looks. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Owen.”
“And I suspect you are at this game, because you are owing money—eh?” and she burst into a shriek of laughter at her own joke. “Well, life has its ups and downs! If it was all just flat, I should be bored stiff. I’ve had some queer old turns myself.”
At this moment the door opened, and a stout, prosperous-looking gentleman made his appearance—red-faced, blue-chinned, wonderfully got up, with shining hair, and shining boots.
“Hullo, Tottie!” he exclaimed; “who have we got here?” glancing suspiciously at Owen. “A new Johnny—eh—you naughty girl?”
“No, no, dear old man,” she protested; “and do you know, that you are twenty minutes late? so I have given him your precious time. This”—waving her hand at Owen—“is Mr. Cloake, my manager. Mr. Cloake, let me present you to my new chauffeur.”
CHAPTER XXIX
TOTTIE TOYE
Miss Tottie Toye’s Renault was a beauty, and, after the old rickety green car, it afforded Wynyard a real pleasure to handle it. He took it for a trial turn to Bushey, in order to get accustomed to its mechanism—for every motor has its peculiar little ways and its own little tempers—and punctually at seven o’clock he was at Rockingham Mansions, awaiting his employer, the dancer.