"How many miles an hour?" went on Tom, pursuing his inquiries with an almost morbid eagerness.
"Forty or fifty, I suppose—sometimes more. I always run at the highest speed. Of course that kind of thing knocks the motor to pieces rather soon, but one can always buy another."
"True!" said Tom. "Very true! One can always buy another!" He paused, and seemed to collect his thoughts with an effort,—then noticing the half-glass of brandy he had left on the counter, he took it up and drank it all off at a gulp. "Have you ever had any accidents on the road?"
"Accidents?" Lord Wrotham put up an eyeglass. "Accidents? What do you mean?"
"Why, what should I mean except what I say!" And Tom gave a sudden loud laugh,—a laugh which made the hostess at the bar start nervously, while many of the men seated round the various tables exchanged uneasy glances. "Accidents are accidents all the world over! Haven't you ever been thrown out, upset, shaken in body, broken in bone, or otherwise involved in mischief?"
Lord Wrotham smiled, and let his eyeglass fall with a click against his top waistcoat button.
"Never!" he said, taking his cigar from his mouth, looking at it, and then replacing it with a relish—"I'm too fond of my own life to run any risk of losing it. Other people's lives don't matter so much, but mine is precious! Eh, Brookfield?"
Brookfield chuckled himself purple in the face over this pleasantry, and declared that his lordship's wit grew sharper with every day of his existence. Meanwhile Tom o' the Gleam moved a step or two nearer to Wrotham.
"You're a lucky lord!" he said, and again he laughed discordantly. "Very lucky! But you don't mean to tell me that while you're pounding along at full speed, you've never upset anything in your way?—never knocked down an old man or woman,—never run over a dog,—or a child?"
"Oh, well, if you mean that kind of thing!" murmured Wrotham, puffing placidly at his cigar—"Of course! That's quite common! We're always running over something or other, aren't we, Brookie?"