60
Mary Pickford about to be trodden to death in Maelstrom or Safety Last. You know, you're not racing your engine enough. I can still hear myself think...."
His voice grew fainter and stopped.
Vigorously I shouted his name. A cold draught, and we swept into the Park. Fitch pulled up on the left-hand side.
"Berry, Berry!" I shouted.
In the distance I could hear voices, but no one answered me....
In response to my sister's exhortations I re-entered the car, and drew a rug over my shivering limbs. The others put their heads out of the windows and shouted for Berry in unison. There was no reply.
For a quarter of an hour we shouted at intervals. Then Jonah took the other lamp and returned to the gate. He did not reappear for ten minutes, and we were beginning to give him up, when to our relief he opened the door.
"No good," he said curtly. "We'd better get on. He's probably gone home."
"I suppose he's all right," said Daphne, in some uneasiness.
"You can't come to any harm on foot," said I. "Everything's going dead slow for its own sake. And when I last heard him, he was having the time of his life. Incidentally, as like as not, he'll strike a car that's going to the Ball and ask for a lift."
"I expect he will," said Jill. "There must be any amount on the way."
"All right," said my sister. "Tell Fitch to carry on."
Twenty minutes later that good helmsman set us down at the main entrance to the Albert Hall.
* * * * *
The conditions prevailing within that edifice suggested that few, if any, ticket-holders had been deterred from attending by the conditions prevailing without. The boxes were full, the floor was packed, the corridors were thronged with eager shining revellers, dancing and strolling and chattering to beat the band, which was flooding every corner of the enormous building with an air of gaiety so infectious that even the staid Jonah began to grumble that the dance woul