210
're simply wild to hear."
"Yes," cried Jill eagerly. "And did you really call him 'Stunkenblotch'? And what happened to his boot? And where----"
"The last thing we saw," said Adèle, "was the fellow get up and go for Nobby. You were sitting by the side of the road."
"And before you begin," said I, "let me say that I wouldn't have left you, brother, if I could have thought of any other way out. But it seemed the only thing to do."
Berry put up his hand.
"Strange as it may seem," he said, "for once I don't blame you. If I hadn't been so weak with laughter I might have boarded the car, but it was then or never. I didn't expect you to wait."
"How did you get on?"
"I fear," said Berry, "that Mr. Dunkelsbaum did expect the car to be waiting at the top of the hill. What he said when he found that the road, which we could see for about five furlongs, was unoccupied, I shall try to forget. Suffice it that he perspired with great freedom, and for a long time appeared to be afflicted with an impediment in his speech. Occasionally he addressed me in Patagonian, but since the only words I could remember were schloss, ausgang and bahnhof, my replies, judging from their reception, were unsatisfactory and sometimes, I grieve to think, even irrelevant.
"Presently I suggested that we should return for his boot. For this he sought, whilst I detained Nobby. I had recommended that the latter's services should be employed in the search, but the bare suggestion provoked such a shocking outburst of profanity that I said no more. When, after exploring the undergrowth for nearly half an hour, he suddenly descried his footgear lodged in the branches of a neighbouring ash, Mr. Dunkelsbaum's behaviour gave me cause to fear for his reason. My theory that some dim-sighted fowl must have mistaken the truant for a piece of refuse met with a furious dismissal, and, from the perfectly poisonous stare with which he declined my offer of assistance to secure his