“I beg your pardon, I meant my animal friends, but, of course, you don’t quite believe in them.”
“I believe that you talk to them, and thus teach yourself to express your views very clearly. At any rate, we can let that pass. May I see this phenomenon of a ju-ju?”
I smiled, because I was expecting him to say that.
“If you don’t mind,“ I explained, ”I would rather show it to you in the train this evening.”
“This evening? Are we not going to Dale End at once?”
“I shall not be ready until nearly six o’clock. I have a lot of things to do. Are you quite sure you will meet me at the station?”
He was positive, he said, but he was distressed at the notion that I should be hours and hours alone in London, so the nice young clerk was ordered to take care of me. I led him rather a dance, and the way I spent Schwartz’s gold seemed to give him a pain. Mr. Warden promised to telegraph to Mam to tell her I was quite safe, and that we should both be home about seven, but he was so astounded by my adventures that he wrote Southend in place of Dale End, and the telegram reached us in a letter two days later, with Mr. Warden’s apologies. Do you know, I am convinced the ju-ju had something to do with that. If Schwartz had heard who Mr. Warden was, he might have smelt a rat. And isn’t it odd, as Bob pointed out, that Southend should come after West-end, and Dale End, and Ostend and Mile End?
The clerk and I had lunch and tea together and he insisted on paying, though I had ever so much more money in my pocket than he. By the time we reached Waterloo he looked rather tired, because we took no more cabs, and I went to lots of places I wanted to see, so I bought him a box of cigarettes as a present, and he said he hoped I would often come to London on business.
Mr. Warden was waiting for me, and the moment the guard set eyes on me he came running up.
“So you’re here, are you, Miss Grosvenor?” he cried. “A fine thing you’ve bin and gone and done. All Dale End is inquirin’ after you, an’ your pore father is nearly wild.”