You must forgive me; it is all my
vanity. It is only to show you that I am right. Can you, with the
assistance of this cigar, wait until both Sir Walter Cholmondeliegh
and the mystic Wimpole have left this house?"
"Certainly," I said. "But I do not know which is likely to leave
first. Have you any notion?"
"No," he said. "Sir Walter may leave first in a glow of rage. Or
again, Mr Wimpole may leave first, feeling that his last epigram is
a thing to be flung behind him like a firework. And Sir Walter may
remain some time to analyse Mr Wimpole's character. But they will
both have to leave within reasonable time, for they will both have
to get dressed and come back to dinner here tonight."
As he spoke the shrill double whistle from the porch of the great
house drew a dark cab to the dark portal. And then a thing happened
that we really had not expected. Mr Wimpole and Sir Walter
Cholmondeliegh came out at the same moment.
They paused for a second or two opposite each other in a natural
doubt; then a certain geniality, fundamental perhaps in both of
them, made Sir Walter smile and say: "The night is foggy. Pray
take my cab."
Before I could count twenty the cab had gone rattling up the street
with both of them. And before I could count twenty-three Grant had
hissed in my ear:
"Run after the cab; run as if you were running from a mad dog--
run.
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