Finally, Louis had another bright idea. He tied the rope to the car, sprang to his seat, and off he started, looking frequently over his shoulder.
He easily motored the man to land, then springing from the car, took hold of him to support his half-fainting body to the car.
It isn’t necessary to report what he said when he found the man was an enormously fat lady with bloomers on. However, with some help from her, he tugged her into the car and laid her on the floor of it, under the surprised Beanie who sat on the seat looking as if he had seen a ghost.
Then didn’t we fly to the brick house. I ran after the car, and hadn’t a bit of breath left when we got there.
The people came running out, and lifted the fat lady in, who, it seems, was a very important person—an English suffragette who had come to this country because she wouldn’t stop throwing bricks at shop windows in England. She was a guest in the house and her name was Lady Serena Glandison. She was also to give a lecture that night in New York. I heard the Grantons talking about it afterward, and master said she was a dead-game sport, for she persisted in giving the lecture.
She wanted to reduce her flesh, and had gone off to have a quiet little skate by herself, not being particularly beautiful in bloomers. Wasn’t she grateful to Louis! She said most undoubtedly she would have drowned, but for him. She sent him a cheque for a thousand dollars, and he is to get more later on, when women get the vote in England and she doesn’t have to spend so much in fines for her pastime of window smashing.
“If they ever do,” said my master.
I may add that Lady Serena is an ultra who wouldn’t stop her militant work on account of the war. She says she can see lots of reasons for smashing windows, but none for smashing men’s ribs. So she came to America to wait for the fighting to be over in Europe.