Armed with the narrow, the heir to the barony left the shop of Mr. Thomas Ling poorer by the sum of five and sixpence, and also by a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist which he had the misfortune to leave upon the counter.
“Cross as two sticks,” muttered the stricken young man as he reached the very end of the celebrated thoroughfare, and gazed an instant into the window of Messrs. Wan & Sedgar to see how their famous annual winter sale was getting on in the absence of the winter.
The mind of the heir to the barony hovered not unpleasantly, for all its unhappiness, over a peculiarly chaste display of silk and woolen pajamas, three pairs for two guineas, guaranteed unshrinkable, when with a shock he awoke to the fact that he was no longer the proud possessor of a box of the best assorted chocolates from B. Venoist.
“I’m all to pieces this mornin’,” registered the vain young man on the inner tablets of his nature. Thereupon he took out his watch, a gold hunting repeater, a present from his mother when he came of age, and in a succinct form apostrophized his Maker.
“My God! nine minutes to one and I’ve got to collect the kids from Eaton Place and the bally show begins at one-thirty. Here, I say!”
The heir to the barony hailed a passing taxi.
“Call at Ling’s up on the right, and then drive like the devil to 300 Eaton Place.”
“Right you are, sir,” said the driver of the taxi, in such flagrant contravention of the spirit of the Public Vehicles Act 9 Edwardus VII Cap III that we much regret being unable to remember his number.
It was the work of two minutes for the heir to the barony to retrieve the box of best assorted chocolates from the custody of Mr. Thomas Ling up on the right, and then the driver of the taxi sat down in the saddle and was just proceeding to let her out a bit, in accordance with instructions, when Constable X held him up peremptorily at the point where Bond Street converges upon B. Venoist. Not, however, we are sorry to say, in order to take the number of this wicked chauffeur, engaged in breaking an Act of Parliament for purposes of private emolument, but merely to enable an old lady in a stole of black mink and a black hat with white trimmings, together with a Pekinese sleeve dog, lately the property of the Empress of China, to cross the street and buy a box of water colors for her youngest nephew.
Certainly she was a very dear old lady; but the heir to the barony cursed her bitterly, as, gold hunting repeater in hand, he vowed that the kids would not be in time for the rising of the curtain. Part of his blame overflowed upon the head of Constable X; and we ourselves concur in this, because we certainly think that, if stop the traffic he must, it behooved him, as the appointed guardian of the public peace, to take the number of this guilty chauffeur.