"Ah," I said, coldly cheerful, "I was just looking for you. Come
along."
We broke into a gay and happy step, suggestive of twin hearts
utterly free from care.
"Why do you look so thoughtful?" asked the girl in blue after ten
minutes of it.
"I've just heard some good news," I said.
"Oh, do tell me!"
"I don't know if it would really interest you."
"I'm sure it would."
"Well, several miles from here there may be a tram, if one can find
it, which goes nobody quite knows where up till one-thirty in the
morning probably. It is now," I added, looking at my watch (I was
getting quite good at this), "just on one o'clock and raining hard.
All is well."
The dance over, I searched in vain for my hostess. Every minute I
took out my watch and seemed to feel that another tram was just
starting off to some unknown destination. At last I could bear it no
longer and, deciding to write a letter of explanation on the morrow,
I dashed off.
My instructions from Miss White with regard to the habitat of trams
(thrown in by her at the last moment in case the train failed me)
were vague. Five minutes' walk convinced me that I had completely
lost any good that they might ever have been to me. Instinct and
common sense were the only guides left. I must settle down to some
heavy detective work.
The steady rain had washed out any footprints that might have been
of assistance, and I was unable to follow up the slot of a tram
conductor of which I had discovered traces in Two-hundred-and-
fifty-first Street. In Three-thousand-eight-hundred-
and-ninety-seventh Street I lay with my ear to the ground and
listened intently, for I seemed to hear the ting-ting of the
electric car, but nothing came of it; and in Four-millionth Street I
made a new resolution. I decided to give up looking for trams and to
search instead for London--the London that I knew.
I felt pretty certain that I was still in one of the Home Counties,
and I did not seem to remember having crossed the Thames, so that if
only I could find a star which pointed to the south I was in a fair
way to get home. I set out to look for a star; with the natural
result that, having abandoned all hope of finding a man, I
immediately ran into him.
"Now then," he said good-naturedly.
"Could you tell me the way to--" I tried to think of some place near
my London--"to Westminster Abbey?"
He looked at me in astonishment. His feeling seemed to be that I was
too late for the Coronation and too early for the morning service.
"Or--or anywhere," I said hurriedly. "Trams, for instance."
He pointed nervously to the right and disappeared.
Imagine my joy; there were tram-lines, and, better still, a tram
approaching. I tumbled in, gave the conductor a penny, and got a
workman's ticket in exchange. Ten minutes later we reached the
terminus.
I had wondered where we should arrive, whether Gray's Inn Road or
Southampton Row, but didn't much mind so long as I was again within
reach of a cab. However, as soon as I stepped out of the tram, I
knew at once where I was.
"Tell me," I said to the conductor; "do you now go back again?"
"In ten minutes. There's a tram from here every half-hour."
"When is the last?"
"There's no last. Backwards and forwards all night."
I should have liked to stop and sympathize, but it was getting late.
I walked a hundred yards up the hill and turned to the right.... As
I entered the gates I could hear the sound of music.
"Isn't this our dance?" I said to Miss White, who was taking a
breather at the hall door. "One moment," I added, and I got out of
my coat and umbrella.
"Is it? I thought you'd gone."
"Oh no, I decided to stay after all. I found out that the trams go
all night."
We walked in together.
"I won't be more autobiographical than I can help," I said, "but I
must say it's a hard life, a doctor's. One is called away in the
middle of a dance to a difficult case of--of mumps or something,
and--well, there you are. A delightful evening spoilt. If one is
lucky, one may get back in time for a waltz or two at the end.
"Indeed," I said, as we began to dance; "at one time to-night I
quite thought I wasn't going to get back here at all."