A shade of alarm fell on M. Feriaud's weather-beaten features. The eminent bird-man did not wish to part from Roland. Toward Roland he felt like a brother, for Roland had notions about payment for little aeroplane rides which bordered upon the princely.
“But you say—take me to France with you——”
“I know. But it's all off. I'm not feeling well.”
“But it's all wrong.” M. Feriaud gesticulated to drive home his point. “You give me one hundred pounds to take you away from Lexingham. Good. It is here.” He slapped his breast pocket. “But the other two hundred pounds which also you promise me to pay me when I place you safe in France, where is that, my friend?”
“I will give you two hundred and fifty,” said Roland earnestly, “to leave me here, and go right away, and never let me see your beastly machine again.”
A smile of brotherly forgiveness lit up M. Feriaud's face. The generous Gallic nature asserted itself. He held out his arms affectionately to Roland.
“Ah, now you talk. Now you say something,” he cried in his impetuous way. “Embrace me. You are all right.”
Roland heaved a sigh of relief when, five minutes later, the aeroplane disappeared over the brow of the hill. Then he began to sneeze again.
“You're not well, you know,” said Mr. Windlebird.
“I've caught cold. We've been flying about all night—that French ass lost his bearings—and my suit is thin. Can you direct me to a hotel?”
“Hotel? Nonsense.” Mr. Windlebird spoke in the bluff, breezy voice which at many a stricken board-meeting had calmed frantic shareholders as if by magic. “You're coming right into my house and up to bed this instant.”
It was not till he was between the sheets with a hot-water bottle at his toes and a huge breakfast inside him that Roland learned the name of his good Samaritan. When he did, his first impulse was to struggle out of bed and make his escape. Geoffrey Windlebird's was a name which he had learned, in the course of his mercantile career, to hold in something approaching
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