"Oh, Britten," she said in a whisper, "suppose we couldn't get on for three or four days."
"In that case," said I, "I should consider that we were really unfortunate, miss, but I'll do my best."
"Are you comfortable at the inn, Britten?"
"Putting on flesh rapidly, miss. I never knew there were so many red herrings in the world."
"And your room?"
"They built it when they thought the King was coming to Sandwich."
She laughed and looked at me, and, just as I was leaving, she whispered, "Do make it three or four days, Britten," and I promised her with a glance she could not mistake. And why not? What was against us? Was it not all plain sailing? Truly so, but for one little fact. I'll tell you in a word—Hook-Nosed Moss and the old bill he carried about like a love-letter—a bill against Dolly St. John for seventy-five pounds sixteen shillings and fourpence.
Well, Moss came down from town suddenly on the second afternoon, and while he carried a new magneto under his arm, the bill was in his pocket right enough. I was standing at the inn door as he drove up in a fly, and when I recognised the face, you might have knocked me down with a cotton umbrella. Not, mind you, that I lost my presence of mind, or said anything foolish, but just that I felt sorry enough for Dolly St. John to risk all I'd got in the world to save her from this land shark. That Moss had found her out, I did not doubt for an instant, and his first words told me I was right.
"Do you know who you've been trotting about the country?" he asked, as he stepped down. I replied that I did not, but that I believed the lady to be a relative of Lord Badington's. Then he was fair angry.
"Lord Badington be d——d," he said, speaking through his nose as he always did, "her dabe's Dolly Sid John, and she's the sabe who did us id de winter. I wonder you were such a precious fool as not to recognise her. Do you mean to dell me you didn't dow her?"