"Nan, are you ready? Your taxi's waiting outside."
"Ticking tuppences away like the very dickens, too!" returned Nan, emerging from her room dressed for a journey.
It was a week or two later and in response to a wire—and as the result of a good deal of persuasion on the part of Penelope—Nan had accepted an engagement to play at a big charity concert in Exeter. Lady Chatterton, the organiser of the concert, had offered to put her up for the couple of nights involved, and Nan was now hurrying to catch the Paddington West-country train.
"I've induced the taxi-driver to come up and carry down your baggage," pursued Penelope. "You'll have to look fairly sharp if you're to catch the one-fifty."
"I must catch it," declared Nan. "Why, the Chattertons are fourteen miles from Abbencombe Station and it would be simply ghastly if they sent all that way to meet me—and there was no me! Besides, there's a rehearsal fixed for ten o'clock to-morrow morning."
While she spoke, the two girls were making their way down the circular flight of stone steps—since the lift was temporarily out of order—preceded by the driver grumblingly carrying Nan's suit-case and hat-box. A minute or two later the taxi emitted a grunt from somewhere within the depths of its being and Nan was off, with Penelope's cheery "Good luck!" ringing in her ears.
She sat back against the cushions and gasped a sigh of relief. She had run it rather close, but now, glancing down at her wrist-watch, she realised that, failing a block in the traffic, she would catch her train fairly easily.
It was after they had entered the Park that the first contre-temps occurred. The taxi jibbed and came abruptly to a standstill. Nan let down the window and leaned out.
"What's the matter?" she asked with some anxiety.
The driver, descending leisurely from his seat, regarded her with a complete lack of interest.