The Motor Pirate

waken until mid-day. So what with my tub and the necessity for shaving, my early morning call upon the Colonel did not come off. I suppose, as a matter of fact, I sat down to breakfast just abo

of finding Miss Maitland at home if I made my call in the afternoon, and since her father oftentimes thought it expedient to take a little repose after

e 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,

ce 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

ne paper that Winter and I had not been the only victims of the scoundrel's rapacity on the previous evening, for a brief telegram reported a similar occurrence a few miles from Oxford on the London r

took the papers from him, and the first glance at one of them made me gasp with amazement.

med and you will be able to get them ad nauseam. But I will venture to give a list of the places where and the times at which the outrages took place, for I m

g place within five minutes of each other, just after ten, in the neighbourhood of Amersham. King's Langley was the scene of his next adventure, the time given being about a quarter of an hour before he had overtaken us. In addition to the particulars of t

ngland, without arrest, puzzled me. The car was so unique in shape that it seemed bound to excite observation. It could not have been put up at any hotel, any more than it could have been run through the country by daylight, without exciting remark and its presence being chronicled. What, then, had he done with it? The more I pondered the q

g was with her. When I made my appearance in the drawing-room, and found him enjoying a tête-à-tête, I cursed myself for delaying my call and thus giving him such an opportunity. My temper was not improved either by the discovery that they

. It was a difficult subject for me to discuss, and in a measure it was a difficult subject for Mannering, inasmuch as it was hard to refrain from reference

tgrove?" said the Colonel. "You, Winter, and myse

ss for an assent, while Mannering s

him," continued Maitland; "he must

ve been everywh

uity of a De Wet

ance of meeting him somet

fire-eater you are, Sutgrove. One might almo

e of the Motor Pirate as if you owed him a grudge. I think we all ought to be supremely th

, but at the same time, I had no intent

ur father approved so highly last night." Then I turned to the Colonel, and made a clumsy attempt to

inished, it seems to me the sort of stuff dreams are made of. Do you know that the glass I d

hear it, Colo

t, and put her arms coaxingly round her father's neck. "D

hand lovingly over hi

illy dreams," he said. "Besides, it was all about the Motor Pirate

whole of my attention to his daughter, who had seated herself upon a footstool at his feet, and was looking up into his face with a pretty affectionate glance in her deep blue eyes, enough to set any one longing to be the recipient of similar regard. Her form, attitude, expression, all made so dee

onfound it! It's all very well for the fellow who writes fiction for a living to write about people's emotions. He is cold himself. If h

iousness that he was speaking of me. I think it was the fact

her car on the road behind us. We had not long passed through Radlett. You k

hen he liked, and on this occasion his description of the shamefaced manner in which Winter had scrambled out of his car, and had handed over his valuables to the Motor Pirate, was so ludicrous that I was c

se from her seat at her father's feet, an

ed that at all. You couldn't." Then she wheeled round on me. "Now tell me,

ruth of the story, and the Colonel was so choked with merri

slightest idea that I was foxing. I intended to inform them directly we were clear of the Pirate; but when I heard them discu

re thinking about," said his daughter. "To submit so

cy it was not Mannering's amusement, but my own cons

y were very sensible," he said. "Even a cripple wi

ers a little less sense, and a little more-shall we say action. I am sure

quisite pleasure to catch him by the throat, an

rd on Sutgrove. I am sure that it was only the full comprehension of his own h

o do!" she answered petulantly. "Has

car in which I happened to be seated had a six-shooter. So had I. The other passengers got as near the floor as they possibly could when the shooting began. I was in pretty good practice in those days, do

unmistakable look of admiration in

ot been, I should have been on th

nship was an aggravation which I could not bear. Harder still was it for me to observe the understanding which obviously existed between him and Miss

I should have been unable to restrain an impulse to kno

ard him ask me to dine with him on the fol

accepted. Then I wen