"How far north are you going?" I asked.
"To Newcastle, sir," the man answered.
He turned then to answer the whistle, and I re-entered my own car. We started first, but they passed us in a few minutes travelling at a great rate, and with a cloud of dust behind them. Delora threw an evil glance at me from his place. For once I had stolen a march upon him. They had both been too ignorant of their route to keep their final destination concealed from the chauffeur, and they certainly had not expected to meet any one on the way with whom he would be likely to talk! But why to Newcastle? I asked myself that question so often during the morning that my shooting became purely a mechanical thing. Newcastle,—the Tyne, coals, and shipbuilding! I could think of nothing else in connection with the place.
Late that evening I sat with a whiskey and soda and final cigar in the smoking-room. The evening papers had just arrived, brought by motor-bicycle from Norwich. I found nothing to interest me in them, but, glancing down the columns, my attention was attracted by some mention of Brazil. I looked to see what the paragraph might be. It concerned some new battleships, and was headed,—
LARGEST BATTLESHIPS IN THE WORLD!
It is not generally known, that there will be launched from the
works of Messrs. Halliday & Co. on the Tyne, within the next three
or four weeks, two of the most powerful battleships of the
"Dreadnought" type, which have yet been built.
There followed some specifications, in which I was not particularly interested, an account of their armament, and a final remark,—