A few minutes after questioning the steward, I was strolling on the lawn thinking over what I had heard, when Sherlock walked out of the club, his obtrusive eyeglass dangling from his buttonhole.
He advanced towards me, somewhat to my surprise, and hailed me from afar, seeing, I suppose, that I was inclined to move on. "I say, sir," he began, "if you want a game, will you take me on? I've a friend just gone, and there doesn't seem to be anyone here but you and me--"
By this time he had stuck the big monocle in his eye, where it had somewhat the effect of a biscuit. I fancied it was the addition of the eyeglass which discomposed his expression, but almost immediately I realised that the change was due to a cause more violent.
"B-ah Jove!" he ejaculated. And then, "'Pon my word, what damned impertinence!" He stood glaring at me through that eyeglass with such an "I am the Duke of Omnium, who the devil are you?" sort of expression that I thought he must be mad, and I stared also, in amazed silence.
After looking me up and down he began again, "What do you mean by it, I want to know, swaggering about here, among gentlemen, as if you were one of Us? I'll have you put out by the waiters." With this extraordinary outburst he turned on his heel, and was making off towards the club-house; but as you know, my temper is not of the sweetest, and mad or not mad, I didn't exactly yearn over Mr. Payne. I took advantage of the long legs about which "my friend Montie" has occasionally chaffed me and caught him up. I cannot conceal from you that I did more. I gripped him by the shoulder. I held him firmly, apparently somewhat against his will. I also shook him, and it now comes dimly back to me that his eyeglass jumped out of his eye.
"You damned cad!" I then remarked in a tone which some people might consider abrupt; "what in h-- do you mean?"
He took to stuttering-some men do in emergencies-and I knew from that instant that he couldn't drive a motor-car. "L-et go," he stammered like a schoolboy. "You-you-confounded chauffeur, you! I'll tell your mistress of you, and have you discharged. You-you're Miss Randolph's chauffeur, and you come here to pass yourself off as a member at a gentleman's club."
On the point of knocking him down, I decided I wouldn't, and dropped him instead like a hot chestnut. You see, he "had me on the hip"; for I am Miss Randolph's chauffeur, and there was no good denying it. In a small way it was one of the nastiest situations of my life. What "A." in Vanity Fair would have done I don't know, and I didn't know what to do myself for a minute. You see, my prophetic soul tells me that the time hasn't come to confess all and throw myself on the Goddess's mercy, as I hope it may some day; and I couldn't afford to be plunged into hot water with her when the facts would look fishy and be impossible to explain. Still, I couldn't eat humble pie with that Bounder; sooner I would have quietly killed him, and stuffed him into a hole in the links. However, a sweet little cherub of inspiration looked out for the fate of poor Jack, and whispered an alternative in my ear.
"Do you dare deny it?" Payne demanded, plucking up courage.
"I 'dare' do a good deal," said I, looking him straight in the eyes. "But I don't intend to deny it. I am Miss Randolph's chauffeur." How he had found that out I couldn't imagine.