"I'm turning back to the left here," he explained. "Look back as I swing, and see if they're in sight."
"Not a sign," said Amaryllis.
But as she spoke they heard the detonations of a back-fire, and pictured, though they could not see, Melchard's avengers plunging away southward, past the end of the lane into which Dick had turned.
This lane between two rows of blunt cottage-fronts soon proved itself not merely a refuge, but an avenue.
At eleven minutes past five Dick Bellamy stopped Melchard's car outside the booking-office of somnolent Harthborough's dead-alive station—the junction of the single-line track to Whitebay and its bathing machines with the double-track branch of the G.N.R. from York to Caterscliff.
A hopeless porter languished against the hot bricks of the doorway. Dick came round between him and Melchard, peering down upon that sordid wreck of smartness. He turned to Amaryllis, who had followed him.
"Pore old guv'nor!" he said tenderly; and Amaryllis with difficulty restrained her surprise at his change from the local dialect to that of the London cab-rank. "They 'aven't arf filled 'im up proper this time." Then, to the porter, despondently interested in this queer company, "Hi, chum! Give us a 'and," he said, pulling from his pocket a confusion of silver, and crumpled Treasury notes. "Is the London trine up yet?"
"Signalled, she be," said the porter, peering at Melchard.
"Keep yer eyes off wot's no blinkin' good to 'em" said Dick. Then, lowering his voice to oily confidence, he went on: "It's young Lord Labrador—Marquis of Toronto's 'opeful. Put 'im through the mill, they 'ave, at yer three-legged race meetin' at Timsdale-'Orton. Made me larf shockin', it did. 'E's got to meet 'is lovin' pa, ten o'clock a.m. ter-morrer mornin', an' I said as I'd see 'im through, and get 'm a wash an' brush up. I train a bit for 'im—the young un, yer know."
"Well, 'tain't noah business o' mine," said the porter.