to get dressed and come back to dinner here tonight."

As he spoke the shrill double whistle from the porch of the great
house drew a dark cab to the dark portal. And then a thing happened
that we really had not expected. Mr Wimpole and Sir Walter
Cholmondeliegh came out at the same moment.

They paused for a second or two opposite each other in a natural
doubt; then a certain geniality, fundamental perhaps in both of
them, made Sir Walter smile and say: "The night is foggy. Pray
take my cab."

Before I could count twenty the cab had gone rattling up the street
with both of them. And before I could count twenty-three Grant had
hissed in my ear:

"Run after the cab; run as if you were running from a mad dog--
run."

We pelted on steadily, keeping the cab in sight, through dark mazy
streets. God only, I thought, knows why we are running at all, but
we are running hard. Fortunately we did not run far. The cab pulled
up at the fork of two streets and Sir Walter paid the cabman, who
drove away rejoicing, having just come in contact with the more
generous among the rich. Then the two men talked together as men do
talk together after giving and receiving great insults, the talk
which leads either to forgiveness or a duel--at least so it seemed
as we watched it from ten yards off. Then the two men shook hands
heartily, and one went down one fork of the road and one down
another.