"Er--Samuel"--I thought at first he was going to say "Inglethwaite," and
was prepared to drop a flower-pot on his head if he did; but he
continued, with the air of one offering a real bargain at the
price--"Phillipps."
"Two P's?" inquired the constable.
"Three," said Dicky.
The policeman rolled a threatening eye upon him.
"Be careful!" he said in an awful voice.
"One of them comes at the beginning," said Dicky meekly.
"Haw, haw!" roared several people in the crowd, which was unfortunate
for Dicky. He was one of those people who would risk a kingdom to raise
a laugh.
"Address?" continued the policeman.
"Buck'nam Pallis!" shouted Coaldust, before any one else in the crowd
could say it.
The policeman turned and directed upon him a look that would have
entirely obfuscated a soberer man.
"I'll attend to you presently," he said in the exact tones which my
dentist employs when he shuts me into the waiting-room. "Now then, your
address? Come along!"
Dicky gave some address which I did not catch, and the representative of
the law turned to Robin. The latter evidently saw rocks ahead if the
inquisition was to be extended to the whole party. He said--
"Surely there is no need to take any more names."
"I'll be responsible for the lot," added Dicky eagerly--too eagerly.
"Now let's be off! Come along Di--Liza!"
He took Dilly by the arm, and, preceded by Gerald, began to press
through the crowd, which by this time extended almost right across the
street.
But the now thoroughly aroused guardian of the peace, determined not to
be rushed like this, broke away from Robin, who was engaging him in
pleasant conversation, and, hastening after the retreating group, laid a
detaining and imperious hand on Dilly's arm.
What happened next I was not quick enough to see. But there was a swirl
and a heave in the crowd, and presently Dicky became visible, standing
in a very heroic attitude with his arm round Dilly; while the policeman,
with an awe-inspiring deliberateness which implied "Now you _have_ gone
and done it!" extricated himself majestically but painfully from the
chasm in the road which had recently been occupying Dicky's attention,
and into which Dicky in defence of his beloved had apparently pushed
him.
Picking up his pocket-book and putting it back into his chest, and
uttering the single and awful word "_Assault!_" the policeman produced a
whistle and blew it.
Things were certainly getting serious, and I had just decided to send
out the hotel porter to the policeman to tell him to bring his captives
inside out of the way of the crowd, when I noticed that Robin was
ploughing his way towards the outskirts of the throng, waving his arm as
he went. Then I saw that his objective was another policeman--an
Inspector this time. He was a gigantic creature, and Robin and he,
slowly forging towards each other through the surrounding sea of faces,
looked like two liners in a tideway.
Robin's conduct in deliberately attracting the notice of yet another
representative of law and order appeared eccentric on the face of it,
but his subsequent behaviour was more peculiar still.
He seized the newly-arrived giant by the arm, and drew him apart from
the crowd, where he told him something which appeared to amuse them both
considerably.
"Yewmorous dialogue," announced Coaldust to his neighbours, "between
Cleopartrer's Needle and the Moniment!"
But it was more than that,--it was deep calling to deep. Presently the
explanation, or the joke, or whatever it was, came to an end, and the
Inspector advanced threateningly upon the crowd.
"Pass along, there, pass along!" he cried with a devastating sweep of
his arm. He spoke with a Highland accent, and I realised yet once more
the ubiquity of that great Mutual Benefit Society which has its
headquarters north of the Tweed.
The crowd politely receded about six inches, and through them,
accompanied by Robin, the Inspector clove his way to the encampment,
where Dicky, who seemed to be rapidly losing his head, was delivering a
sort of recitative to every one in general, accompanied by the policeman
on the whistle.
What the Inspector said to his subordinate I do not know, but the net
result was that in a very short time the former was escorting the entire
party of excavators down the street, attended by a retinue of small boys
(who were evidently determined to see if it was going to turn out a
hanging matter); while the latter, to whom the clearing of the "house"
had evidently been deputed, set about that task with a vigour and
ferocity which plainly indicated a well-meaning and zealous mind
tingling under an entirely undeserved official snub.
* * * * *
They told me all about it in the smoking-room that night.
"The idea," began Dicky, "was----"
"Whose idea was it?" I inquired sternly "It was all of our idea,"
replied my future relative by marriage lucidly.
"But who worked it out?" I asked,--"the plot, the business, the 'props'?
It was a most elaborate production."
"Never you mind that, old man," said Dicky lightly. (But I saw that
Robin was laboriously relighting his pipe and surrounding himself with
an impenetrable cloud of smoke.) "Listen to the yarn. The idea was to
stake out a claim in some fairly busy road and stay there for a given
time--say, six o'clock till tea-time--and kid the passing citizens that
we were duly authorised to get in the way and mess up the traffic
generally. If we succeeded we were going to write to _The Times_ or some
such paper and tell what we had done--anonymously, of course--just to
show how necessary Champion's Bill is."
"Have you written the letter?"
"Yes."
"I wouldn't send it if I were you."
"Well, that's what Robin here has been saying."
"Putrid rot if we don't!" remarked Gerald, who had by this time washed
his face, but ought to have been in bed for all that.
"We can't do it," said Robin. "For one thing, we have attracted quite
enough public attention already,--it's bound to be in the papers anyhow,
now, and that will probably give the Bill all the advertisement it
needs,--and if we give the authorities any more clues our names may come
out. For another thing, it wouldn't be fair to Hector MacPherson."
"Who is he?"
"That Inspector who came up at the critical moment. He was one of my
first friends in London."
"I remember. Go on."
"I was thankful to see him, I can tell you. Well, he undertook to square
that poor bewildered bobby, and to take steps to get the road cleared
and the hole filled up."
"How?"
"There is a street being mended just round the corner, and he said he
would get the foreman of the gang, who is a relation of his wife's, to
send a couple of men to put things right immediately. It's probably done
by now."
"Then I suppose we may regard the incident as closed."
"Yes, I suppose so."
There was a silence.
"It was a bit of a failure at the finish," said Dicky meditatively, "but
it was a success on the whole--what?"
"Rather!" said his fellow-conspirators.
"Our chief difficulty," continued Dicky, "was to decide on the exact
type of drama to present. I was all for our dressing up as foreigners,
and relaying an asphalte street. It would have been top-hole to trot
about in list slippers and pat the hot asphalte down with those things
they use. And think of the make-up!--curly moustaches and earrings! And
we could have jabbered spoof Italian. But then old Robin here, who I
must say has a headpiece on him, pointed out that the scenery and props
would be much too expensive. We should want a cart with a bonfire in it
and a sort of witches' cauldron on top, and all kinds of sticky stuff;
so we gave up that scheme. We did not feel inclined to mess with
gas-pipes or electric wires either, in case we burst ourselves up; so we
finally decided to select some street with a wooden pavement, and maul
it about generally for as long as we could. If we got interfered with by
anybody official, we meant to talk some rot about the Borough Surveyor,
and skedaddle if necessary. But it all worked beautifully!"
"Where did you get your tools and tent?"
"Robin managed that," said Dicky admiringly.
Robin looked extremely dour, and I refrained from further inquiry.
"Robin's got some rum pals, I _don't_ think!" observed Gerald
pertinently.
"Didn't I make these chaps up well?" continued Dicky enthusiastically.
"We roared when you passed us at breakfast-time without spotting us."
"Very creditable impersonation," I replied, getting up and knocking my
pipe out. "I only hope I shan't have to resign my seat over it. If I may
venture to offer a criticism, the weak spot in the enterprise was the
idea of inviting your lady friends to come and take tea with you."
"Just what I said all along, my boy," remarked the experienced Gerald,
wagging his head sagely. "That was what mucked up the show. Wherever
there's a petticoat there's trouble. Oh, I _warned_ them!"
On my way up to bed I flushed Dilly from a window-seat on the staircase,
where she had evidently been lingering on the off-chance of a
supplementary good-night from Dicky.
"Well?" I said severely.
"Well?"
"Do you know what time it is?"
"I expect your wife will tell you that when you get upstairs," said
Dilly.