“To me all ze English speak ze same,” replied the Baron. “All bot you, my fairest, viz your sound like a—vat you call?—fiddle, is it?”
Though his charmer had serious misgivings regarding their cabman’s topographical knowledge, the Baron’s company proved so absorbing that it was not till they were being rapidly driven over Vauxhall Bridge that she at last took alarm. At first the Baron strove to soothe her by the most approved Teutonic blandishments, but in time he too began to feel concerned, and in a voice like thunder he repeatedly called upon the driver to stop. No reply was vouchsafed, and the pace merely grew the more reckless.
“Can’t you catch the reins?” cried the lady, who had got into a terrible fright.
The Baron twice essayed the feat, but each time a heavy blow over the knuckles from the butt-end of the whip forced him to desist. The lady burst into tears. [pg 91] The Baron swore in five languages alternately, and still the cab pursued its headlong career through deserted midnight streets, past infrequent policemen and stray belated revellers, on into an unknown wilderness of brick.
“Oh, don’t let him murder me!” sobbed the lady.
“Haf cheer, fairest; he shall not vile I am viz you! Gott in himmel, ze rascal! Parbleu und blood! Goddam! Vait till I catch him, hell and blitzen! Haf courage, dear!”
“Oh dear, oh dear!” wailed the lady. “I shall never do it again!”
They must have covered miles, and still the speed never abated, when suddenly, as they were rounding a sharp corner, the horse slipped on the frost-bound road, and in the twinkling of an eye the Baron and the lady were sitting on opposite sides of their fallen steed, and the cabman was rubbing his head some yards in front.
“Teufel!” exclaimed the Baron, rising carefully to his feet. “Ach, mine dearest vun, art thou hurt?”
The lady was silent for a moment, as though trying to decide, and then she burst into hysterical laughter.