know I can't for the life of me remember your name. You must excuse me. My memory for names is not what it was. And I hate to dissemble, don't you?"

The announcement was a grave shock to Mr. Oswald Morfey, who imagined that half the taxi-drivers in London knew him by sight. Nevertheless he withstood the shock like a little man of the world, and replied with miraculous and sincere politeness: "I'm sure there's no reason why you should remember my name." And he vouchsafed his name.

"Of course! Of course!" exclaimed Mr. Prohack, with a politeness equally miraculous, for the word "Morfey" had no significance for the benighted official. "How stupid of me!"

"By the way," said Mr. Morfey in a lower, confidential tone. "Your Eagle will be ready to-morrow instead of next week."

"My Eagle?"

"Your new car."

It was Mr. Prohack's turn to be staggered, and to keep his nerve. Not one word had he heard about the purchase of a car since Charlie's telegram from Glasgow. He had begun to think that his wife had either forgotten the necessity of a car or was waiting till his more complete recovery before troubling him to buy it. And he had taken care to say nothing about it himself, for he had discovered, upon searching his own mind, that his interest in motor-cars was not an authentic interest and that he had no desire at all to go motoring in pursuit of health. And lo! Eve had been secretly engaged in the purchase of a car for him! Oh! A remarkable woman, Eve: she would stop at nothing when his health was in question. Not even at a two thousand pound car.

"Ah, yes!" said Mr. Prohack, with as much tranquillity as though his habit was to buy a car once a week or so. "To-morrow, you say? Good!" Was the fellow then a motor-car tout working on commission?

"You see," said Ozzie, "my old man owns a controlling interest in the Eagle Company. That's how I happen to know."

"I see," murmured Mr. Prohack, speculating wildly in private as to the identity of Ozzie's old man.

When Ozzie with a nod and a smile and a re-fixing of his monocle left the cubicle to enter the studio, he left Mr. Prohack freshly amazed at the singularities of the world and of women, even the finest women. How disturbing to come down to Putney in a taxi-cab in order to learn from a stranger that you have bought a two thousand 

 Prev. P 69/308 next