reaching my own doorway for the fifth or sixth time I had just turned, when I saw a black shadow on the road opposite the Maitlands' house. One glance was enough; it was the Motor Pirate again, and I began to count. "One—two—," the car passed me, "three—four;" it had vanished round a turning of the road in the direction of St. Albans.

   Even what I had already experienced of the Pirate had not prepared me for such an exhibition as this. What Mannering had said about the delight of flying along an open road at a hundred miles an hour recurred to me. I had not deemed it possible. But I paced the distance between the Colonel's house and the bend where the strange car had passed out of sight. The distance was just about two hundred yards, and it had been covered as near as possible in four seconds. The car must have been travelling just about a hundred miles an hour.

   I went straight indoors to bed. I am not ashamed to confess that I was not able to continue my dreams in comfort, while pacing the road, by the consideration of what would have happened to me had the Motor Pirate come along just two seconds before I happened to turn and see him.

   I came to my breakfast, therefore, with as good a spirit as appetite, neither being in the slightest degree affected by the memory of the easy way in which I had been plundered by the Motor Pirate. Of course I felt a certain chagrin. Still, I could contemplate the adventure with a considerable deal more equanimity than I had managed to display the night before, though I found that my curiosity concerning him had, if anything, increased. I turned with eagerness to the morning papers to see whether they could add to my knowledge concerning him.

   As every one is aware, all the papers on the morning of the first of April that year devoted columns to his exploits. If I remember aright, the country was at that time engaged upon two of our usual minor wars, Parliament was in the midst of an important debate upon the second reading of a measure to secure an extension of the franchise, and a divorce case of more than common interest was engaging the attention of the leading legal lights of the law courts. But all these things received but the scantiest notice. The war news was relegated to the inside pages, the Parliamentary intelligence cut down to the barest summary, the

    cause célèbre

   dismissed with such a paragraph as ordinarily serves to chronicle an unimportant police court case. The Motor Pirate had nearly a monopoly of 

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