“What for?”
“Stop the cab, I say!”
“She must be ill,” we cried. “Stop the cab!” and an unharmonious trio immediately assailed the ears of the driver: “Stop the cab!”
The cab stopped. “What’s up anyhow?” inquired the London Jehu.
“I have left my diary on the dressing-table!”
If any of you have kept a diary you will understand the dread horror that overwhelmed us all at this awful announcement: one gasp, one moment of terrible silence, and then—action. “I must go back for it at once. You go on. I will take a hansom and gallop all the way. If I miss the boat, I will catch you at Dartmouth. I would sooner die than have that diary read! Hi, driver! Montague Place, Kensington! A half-sovereign if you drive as fast as you can.” Bang! slam! a rush! a roar! and Louise is whirled away in the hansom cab, with the white-horse and the dashing-looking driver, with a flower in his button-hole. How the horse flew! What short cuts the driver took, darting across street-corners, shaving lamp-posts and imperilling the lives of small boys and old women selling apples, as only a London hansom-cab driver can! Everybody turns around as the white horse with the short tail, dragging the cab with its pale-faced occupant, dashes down the street, through the squares, across the park, round the crescent, where the policeman looks almost inclined to stop it, until he sees the anxious look of the girl inside; up the terrace, down two more streets, and finally, with a clatter, rattle, bang, a plunge and a bump, horse, cab, and “fare” come to a standstill at Montague Place. The door is thrown open by the servant-girl. “Have you seen a red-covered book with a brass lock that I left on the dressing-table in my room?”
“No, miss.”
“Very well, where is Mrs — Oh! there you are! Oh! please, have you seen a brass book with a red lock, that I left on the—Why, there it is in your hand! Oh, thank you ever so much! I know you were going to bring it to me. Good-bye! I shall be just in time.
“London Docks! Cabman, quick! Catch the Trojan before she leaves.” “All right, miss!” A twist, a plunge, a flick with the whip, and the bob-tailed nag is half-way down Oxford Street before the astonished landlady can realise the fact that her chance of finding out all the secrets of Miss Louise is gone forever.