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....