"I must ask you to explain," said he. "Do you mean to turn me out
into the rain? My good man, I suspect the choice is mine."
"The choice is certainly yours," replied the driver; "but when I
tell you all, I believe I know how a gentleman of your figure will
decide. There is a gentlemen's party in this house. I do not know
whether the master be a stranger to London and without
acquaintances of his own; or whether he is a man of odd notions.
But certainly I was hired to kidnap single gentlemen in evening
dress, as many as I pleased, but military officers by preference.
You have simply to go in and say that Mr. Morris invited you."
"Are you Mr. Morris?" inquired the Lieutenant.
"Oh, no," replied the cabman. "Mr. Morris is the person of the
house."
"It is not a common way of collecting guests," said Brackenbury:
"but an eccentric man might very well indulge the whim without any
intention to offend. And suppose that I refuse Mr. Morris's
invitation," he went on, "what then?"
"My orders are to drive you back where I took you from," replied
the man, "and set out to look for others up to midnight. Those who
have no fancy for such an adventure, Mr. Morris said, were not the
guests for him."
These words decided the Lieutenant on the spot.
"After all," he reflected, as he descended from the hansom, "I have
not had long to wait for my adventure."
He had hardly found footing on the side-walk, and was still feeling
in his pocket for the fare, when the cab swung about and drove off
by the way it came at the former break-neck velocity.
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