"If you don't let me out I'll climb out," he said, and began to
make as good as his word over the tonneau.
Of course, there was nothing for it but to stop the car.
Jones deliberately descended and headed for New York.
I ran after him, while the chauffeur turned the car round and
slowly followed us both. It was a queer procession. First
Jones, then I, then the car.
Finally I overtook him.
"Jones," I panted. "Jones."
He muttered something about Ananias, and speeded up.
"But it was an awfully tight place," I pleaded. "Something had
to be done; you must make allowances; it was the first thing that
came into my head--and you must admit that it worked, Jones.
Didn't she send you the locket? Didn't she--?"
"What a prancing, show-of, matinee fool you've made me look!" he
burst out. "I have an old mother to support. I have an
increasing practice. I have already attracted some little
attention in my chosen field--eye, ear and throat. A nice figure
I'd cut, traipsing around battle-fields in a kimono, and looking
for a kindly bullet to lay me low. If I were ever tempted by
such a thing--which God forbid--wouldn't I prefer to spread
bacilli on buttered toast?"
"I never thought of that," I said humbly.
"I have known retail liars," he went on. "But I guess you are the
only wholesaler in the business. When other people are content
with ones and twos you get them out in grosses, packed for
export!"
He went on slamming me like this for miles. Anybody else would
have given him up as hopeless. I don't want to praise myself,
but if I have one good quality it's staying power. I pleaded and
argued, and expostulated and explained, with the determination of
a man whose back is to the wall. I wasn't going to lose Freddy
so long as there was breath in my body. However, it wasn't the
least good in the world. Jones was as impervious as sole-leather,
and as unshaken as a marble pillar.
Then I played my last card.
I told him the truth! Not the whole truth, of course, but within
ten per cent of it. About Freddy, you know, and how she was
determined not to marry before her elder sister, and how
Eleanor's only preference seemed to be for him, and how with such
a slender clue to work on I had engineered everything up to this
point.
"If I have seemed to you intolerably prying and officious," I
said, "well, at any rate, Jones, there's my excuse. It rests
with you to give me Freddy or take her from me. Turn back, and
you'll make me the happiest man alive; go forward, and--and--"