In a moment Angelica was with us, her face beaming with delight.
"Oh, thank you, thank you!" she cried, but I would not listen to her gratitude. "Hurry!" I said, "or you will be too late. Joy go with you."
They hastened off, and I walked back to the gardens. I looked at my watch, and to my horror I saw it was five minutes past six. Fifteen minutes left yet. Fifteen minutes in which they might be overtaken. I stopped for a moment irresolutely. What should I do? I thought of running after them to the station. I thought in some way I might help them—buy their tickets or do something. But while I was thinking I heard a rattle, and down the street came the man in livery, and Snortfrizzle's bottle-nose like a volcano behind him. The minute they reached me, and there was nobody else in the street, the old man shouted, "Hi! Have you seen two bath-chairs with a young man and a young woman in them?"
I was on the point of saying No, but changed my mind like a flash. "Did the young lady wear a hat with blue ribbons?" I asked.
"Yes!" he roared. "Which way did they go?"
"And did the young man with her wear eyeglasses and a brown moustache?"
"With her, was he?" screamed Snortfrizzle. "That's the rascal. Which way did they go? Tell me instantly."
When I was a very little girl I knew an old woman who told me that if a person was really good at heart, the holy angels would allow that person, in the course of her life, twelve fibs without charge, provided they was told for the good of somebody and not to do harm. Now at such a moment as this I could not remember how many fibs of that kind I had left over to my credit, but I knew there must be at least one, and so I didn't hesitate a second. "They have gone to the Cat and Fiddle," said I. "I heard them tell their bath-chair men so, as they urged them forward at the top of their speed. They stopped for a second here, sir, and I heard the gentleman send a cabman for a clergyman, post haste, to meet them at the Cat and Fiddle."
