My Friend the Chauffeur | Page 8

your King. And what was done about it when
you had only a Queen on the throne?"
"You must inquire of the chamberlains," I replied. "But about that trip
of ours. The--er--my car is in a garage not far away, and it can be ready
when--"
"Oh, I hope it's a red car, with your coat of arms on it. I do so admire
red for an automobile. We could all fix ourselves up in red cloaks and
hats to match, and make ourselves look awfully swell--"
"Everybody'd call us 'The Crimson Ramblers,' or 'The Scarlet Runners,'
or something else horrid," tittered that precocious child Beechy.
"It isn't red, it's grey," Terry managed hastily to interpolate; which
settled one burning question, the first which had been settled or seemed
likely to be settled at our present rate of progress.
"If you are keen on starting--" I essayed again, hope triumphing over
experience.
"Yes, I'm just looking forward to that start," Mrs. Kidder caught me up.
"We shall make a sensation. We're neighbours of yours, you know.
We're at the Cap Martin Hotel. Isn't it perfectly lovely there, with that

big garden, the woods and all? When we were coming to the Riviera, I
told the man at Cook's that we wanted to go to the grandest hotel there
was, where we could feel we were getting our money's worth; and he
said all the kings and princes, and queens and princesses went to the
Cap Martin, so--"
"We thought it might be good enough for us," capped Beechy.
"It's as full of royalties, as--as--"
"As a pack of cards," I suggested.
"And some of them have splendid automobiles. I've been envying them;
and only this morning I was saying to my little girl, what a lot of nice
things there are that women and children can't do, travelling
alone--automobiling for one. Then, when I came on that advertisement
of yours, I just screamed. It did seem as if the Hand of Providence must
have been pointing it out. And it was so funny your home being on the
Cap, too, within ten minutes' walk of our hotel. I'm sure it was meant,
aren't you?"
"Absolutely certain," I responded, with a glance at Terry, who was not
showing himself off to any advantage in this scene although he ought to
have been the leading actor. He did nothing but raise his eyebrows
when he thought that no one was looking, or tug at his moustache most
imprudently when somebody was. Or else he handed the cakes to Miss
Destrey, and forgot to offer them to her far more important relatives.
"I'm so sure of it," I went on, "that I think we had better arrange--"
"Yes, indeed. Of course your ch--Mr. Barrymore (or did I hear you say
Terrymore?) is a very experienced driver? We've never been in an
automobile yet, any of us, and I'm afraid, though it will be perfectly
lovely as soon as we're used to it, that we may be a little scary at first.
So it would be nice to know for sure that the driver understood how to
act in any emergency. I should hate to be killed in an automobile. It
would be such--such an untidy death to die, judging from what you
read in the papers sometimes."

"I should prefer it, myself," I said, "but that's a matter of taste, and you
may trust Terry--Mr. Barrymore. What he doesn't know about a
motor-car and its inner and outer workings isn't worth knowing. So
when we go--"
"Aunt K--I mean Kittie, don't you think we ought to go home to the
hotel?" asked Miss Destrey, who had scarcely spoken until now, except
to answer a question or two of Terry's, whom she apparently chose to
consider in the Martyr's Boat, with herself. "We've been here for hours,
and it's getting dark."
"Why, so it is!" exclaimed Mrs. Kidder, rising hurriedly. "I'm quite
ashamed of myself for staying so long. What will you think of us? But
we had such a lot of things to arrange, hadn't we?"
We had had; and we had them still. But that was a detail.
"We must go," she went on. "Well, we've decided nearly everything"
(this was news to me). "But there are one or two things yet we'll have
to talk over, I suppose."
"Quite so," said I.
"Could you and Mr. Terrymore come and dine with us to-night? Then
we can fix everything up."
"Speaking for myself, I'm afraid I can't, thanks very much," Terry said,
hastily.
"What about you, Sir Ralph? I may call you Sir Ralph, may I not?"
"Please. It's my name."
"Yes, I know it. But it sounds so familiar, from a stranger. I was
wondering if one ought to say 'Sir Ralph Moray,'