"That is nothing. Good-night."
"Good-night."
Like a shadow she was fleeing up the wide drive, her feet barely making any sound upon it; then, even as she disappeared from view, Cleek turned swiftly to the chauffeur who sat in the front seat of the car, goggles hiding his eyes from view, and clapped him upon the shoulder.
"Well done, Dollops, well done!" he rapped out with a soft laugh. "I thought it was you the minute my peepers rested upon your Cockney countenance, you little bundle of indefatigability! How did you do it? You caught my meaning, of course? Deuced keen of you, I must say!"
Dollops grinned, and slipped his goggles into his pocket.
"Yus," he returned, with a vigorous nod. "I caught the signal orl right. 'Listen,' you said, didn't you, Guv'nor? So I listens, and then I makes a little plan all on my lonesome. 'The Guv'-nor's up to summink,' says I ter me, 'an' I'll lay 'e wants me ter tyke a little 'and.' And so I ups and makes fer the road, and there I find the shuvver a-waitin' in this 'ere little snortin' machine."
"He was there, then, was he?"
"Large as life and twice as nat'ril. 'Now, then, me lad,' I says ter me, 'git on the right side o' 'im, an' if yer can't git on the right side, git on the wrong side, s' long as yer gits 'im out of 'is seat.' But a couple er bob to a Scotsman is as big as a legacy, sir, an' I soon puts 'im strite wiv a message from 'is missis. 'Snoop along an' send a wire ter town,' says I, Comin' later in the day, wait fer me, an' address it ter the Commander-in-Chief of the Generil Post Office, Lunnon.' An' he looks at me an' swallows the gaff like as it were plumduff. I could 'er larfed, sir—strite I could! And I gives 'im the tip ter get a drink, and before I'd finished speakin', 'e'd gorn!"
"Good lad! good lad!" Cleek's laugh was merry if low-pitched. The London address of the telegraph message tickled his sense of humour immensely. "And what did you do then?"
"Drove dahn the road a little just ter keep me 'and in, and then, when I 'eard you call out ter the lydy, and knew you wuz in danger, sir—why, I slipped in the clutch and come rocketing toward yer as farst as I could."