"I redoubled my efforts. I had not been brought up to this sort of
thing; but I believe I eclipsed myself. Words that I did not know I
had ever heard of seemed to come pouring out of my open mouth.

"`When we get you past,' whispered Bill, `you'll howl louder;
you'll howl louder when we're burning your feet off.'

"I screamed in my terror those awful songs of joy. In all the
nightmares that men have ever dreamed, there has never been
anything so blighting and horrible as the faces of those five men,
looking out of their poke-bonnets; the figures of district visitors
with the faces of devils. I cannot think there is anything so
heart-breaking in hell.

"For a sickening instant I thought that the bustle of my companions
and the perfect respectability of all our dresses would overcome
the policeman and induce him to let us pass. He wavered, so far as
one can describe anything so solid as a policeman as wavering. I
lurched suddenly forward and ran my head into his chest, calling
out (if I remember correctly), `Oh, crikey, blimey, Bill.' It was
at that moment that I remembered most dearly that I was the Vicar
of Chuntsey, in Essex.

"My desperate coup saved me. The policeman had me hard by the back
of the neck.

"`You come along with me,' he began, but Bill cut in with his
perfect imitation of a lady's finnicking voice.