Read Online Berry And Co. by Dornford Yates - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Dornford Yates
Tags: Berry & Co
Ads: Link
morning.”
On the way out he stopped at a counter and purchased one of the prettiest bead bags I have ever seen. He ordered it to be sent to Daphne.
The omnibus was sailing down Oxford Street at a good round pace, but it was the sudden draught from a side street that twitched my hat from my head. I turned to see the former describe a somewhat elegant curve and make a beautiful landing upon the canopy of a large limousine which was standing by the kerb some seventy yards away. By the time I had alighted, that distance was substantially increased. In some dudgeon I proceeded to walk, with such remnants of dignity as I could collect and retain, in the direction of my lost property. Wisdom suggested that I should run; but I felt that the spectacle of a young man, hatless but otherwise decently dressed and adequately protected from the severity of the weather, needed but the suggestion of impatience to make it wholly ridiculous. My vanity was rightly served. I was still about thirty paces from my objective, when the limousine drew out from the pavement and into the stream of traffic which was hurrying east.
As my lips framed a particularly unpleasant expletive a bell rang sharply, and I turned to see a taxi, which had that moment been dismissed.
“Oxford Circus,” I cried, flinging open the door.
A moment later we were near enough for me to indicate the large limousine and to instruct my driver to follow her.
As we swept into Regent’s Park, I began to wonder whether I should not have been wiser to drive to Bond Street and buy a new hat. By the time we had been twice round the Ring I had no longer any doubt on this point; but my blood was up, and I was determined to run my quarry to earth, even if it involved a journey to Hither Green.
More than once we were almost out-distanced, three times we were caught in a block of traffic, so that my taxi’s bonnet was nosing the limousine’s tank. Once I got out, but, as I stepped into the road, the waiting stream was released, and the car slid away and round the hull of a ’bus from under my very hand. My escape from a disfiguring death beneath the wheels of a lorry was so narrow that I refrained from a second attempt to curtail my pursuit, and resigned myself to playing a waiting game.
When we emerged from the Park, my spirits rose and I fell to studying what I could see of the lines of the limousine, and to speculating whether I was being led to Claridge’s or the Ritz. I had just pronounced in favour of the latter, when there fell upon my ears the long regular spasm of ringing which is a fire-engine’s peremptory demand for instant way. Mechanically the order was everywhere obeyed. The street was none too wide, and a second and louder burst of resonance declared that the fire-engine was hard upon our heels.
The twenty yards separating us from the limousine were my undoing. With a helpless glance at me over his shoulder, my driver pulled in to the kerb, and we had the felicity of watching the great blue car turn down a convenient side street and flash out of sight.
The engine swept by at a high smooth speed, the traffic emerged from its state of suspended animation, and in some annoyance I put my head out of the window and directed my driver to drive to Bond Street.
I had chosen a new hat and was on the point of leaving the shop, when a chauffeur entered with a soft grey hat in his hand. The hat resembled the one I had lost, and for a moment I hesitated. Then it occurred to me that there were many such hats in London, and I passed on and out of the door. Of course it was only a coincidence. Still…
Opposite me, drawn up by the kerb, was the large blue limousine.
The next moment I was back in the shop.
“I rather think that’s my hat,” I said.
The chauffeur looked round.
“Is it, sir? ’Er ladyship see it on top o’ the canopy just as I put ’er down at the Berkeley. ‘Wilkins,’ she says, ‘there’s a ’at on the car.’ ‘A ’at, me lady?’
On the way out he stopped at a counter and purchased one of the prettiest bead bags I have ever seen. He ordered it to be sent to Daphne.
The omnibus was sailing down Oxford Street at a good round pace, but it was the sudden draught from a side street that twitched my hat from my head. I turned to see the former describe a somewhat elegant curve and make a beautiful landing upon the canopy of a large limousine which was standing by the kerb some seventy yards away. By the time I had alighted, that distance was substantially increased. In some dudgeon I proceeded to walk, with such remnants of dignity as I could collect and retain, in the direction of my lost property. Wisdom suggested that I should run; but I felt that the spectacle of a young man, hatless but otherwise decently dressed and adequately protected from the severity of the weather, needed but the suggestion of impatience to make it wholly ridiculous. My vanity was rightly served. I was still about thirty paces from my objective, when the limousine drew out from the pavement and into the stream of traffic which was hurrying east.
As my lips framed a particularly unpleasant expletive a bell rang sharply, and I turned to see a taxi, which had that moment been dismissed.
“Oxford Circus,” I cried, flinging open the door.
A moment later we were near enough for me to indicate the large limousine and to instruct my driver to follow her.
As we swept into Regent’s Park, I began to wonder whether I should not have been wiser to drive to Bond Street and buy a new hat. By the time we had been twice round the Ring I had no longer any doubt on this point; but my blood was up, and I was determined to run my quarry to earth, even if it involved a journey to Hither Green.
More than once we were almost out-distanced, three times we were caught in a block of traffic, so that my taxi’s bonnet was nosing the limousine’s tank. Once I got out, but, as I stepped into the road, the waiting stream was released, and the car slid away and round the hull of a ’bus from under my very hand. My escape from a disfiguring death beneath the wheels of a lorry was so narrow that I refrained from a second attempt to curtail my pursuit, and resigned myself to playing a waiting game.
When we emerged from the Park, my spirits rose and I fell to studying what I could see of the lines of the limousine, and to speculating whether I was being led to Claridge’s or the Ritz. I had just pronounced in favour of the latter, when there fell upon my ears the long regular spasm of ringing which is a fire-engine’s peremptory demand for instant way. Mechanically the order was everywhere obeyed. The street was none too wide, and a second and louder burst of resonance declared that the fire-engine was hard upon our heels.
The twenty yards separating us from the limousine were my undoing. With a helpless glance at me over his shoulder, my driver pulled in to the kerb, and we had the felicity of watching the great blue car turn down a convenient side street and flash out of sight.
The engine swept by at a high smooth speed, the traffic emerged from its state of suspended animation, and in some annoyance I put my head out of the window and directed my driver to drive to Bond Street.
I had chosen a new hat and was on the point of leaving the shop, when a chauffeur entered with a soft grey hat in his hand. The hat resembled the one I had lost, and for a moment I hesitated. Then it occurred to me that there were many such hats in London, and I passed on and out of the door. Of course it was only a coincidence. Still…
Opposite me, drawn up by the kerb, was the large blue limousine.
The next moment I was back in the shop.
“I rather think that’s my hat,” I said.
The chauffeur looked round.
“Is it, sir? ’Er ladyship see it on top o’ the canopy just as I put ’er down at the Berkeley. ‘Wilkins,’ she says, ‘there’s a ’at on the car.’ ‘A ’at, me lady?’
Similar Books
