"We did."
"I felt when I gave him it like old Noah letting the dove out of the Ark, and then we settled down to our tinned meat and biscuits. Oh, heavens! I don't want to talk or think of it. We played beggar-my-neighbour with an old pack of cards. Then my tobacco gave out. Giveen didn't mind. He was quite happy on the tinned meat, and he doesn't smoke or drink, and I had to go through it all without complaining, and that was the worst of it."
"I think it was splendid of you," said the girl. "Go on."
"Faith, and 'splendid' is no word," exclaimed French. "You're certainly a friend in a million. Go on."
Fortified by these praises, the weary one continued his narrative.
"Well, day after day passed, till I began, like those chaps that get shipwrecked, to lose count of time. I heard church bells ringing the day before yesterday, for instance, and then I knew it was Sunday, somewhere, for it didn't seem Sunday or any other day in that beastly cottage. Time seemed to have stopped. You see, there were no books there, no newspapers, nothing, and my tobacco had given out; and against all that misery the tinned meat and biscuits began to stand out in such high relief that mealtime became a horror. Oh, Heaven! don't let me talk about it! I want to try to forget it.
"Well, things went on like that till it came to yesterday, and I said to myself: 'This can't go on any longer, for I'm beginning to hear voices, and the next thing will be I'll see things. Southend is only ten or eleven miles away. It's a flat road, and there's a car outside. I'll lock Giveen up in his room, make a dash for Southend, in the car, get some tobacco and a bottle of whisky and some books, and dart back again. I'll do the whole thing in an hour or so, and it's better to take the risk than lose my reason.'
"So I just told Giveen I was very sorry, but he'd have to accommodate himself to circumstances, and I got a fishing-line of the uncle's, and fastened his wrists behind his back. Then I fastened him with a rope and a rolling band knot to the iron bedstead in the bedroom, told him I wouldn't be more than an hour away, locked the door on him, jumped into the car, and drove off.
"I got to Southend in record time. I only ran over one hen, but I very nearly had an old woman and a dog. I piled up with sixpenny novels and comic papers at the first bookshop, got three bottles of whisky, half a pound of navy-cut, and some matches, and started back. It was half-past three when I left Southend, and I hadn't gone more than two miles when the car came to a dead stop. I don't know the 'innards' of a car. I only knew that the thing had stopped, that I was nine miles from the cottage, and that the car was right in the fair way blocking the road.