"Is your heart all right?" she demanded.

"It was when we started."

"But I know this road backwards."

"You needn't tell me that," said I. "We should have been killed long ago
if you didn't. Seriously, I don't want to abuse your hospitality, but
we're going to have kidneys for breakfast to-morrow, and I should be
sorry to miss them."

"Are you fond of kidneys?"

"Passionately. I used to go out and gather them as a child. In the
morning and the meadows. Or were we talking of haddock?"

Miss Childe hesitated before replying.

"I used to, too. But I was always afraid of their being toadstools.
They're poisonous, aren't they?"

"Deadly. By the way, there are six hansoms full of toadstools at the
cross-roads which I observe we are approaching."

"I don't believe you."

I was wrong. But there was a waggon full of logs and a limousine full of
children, which were rather worse.

We proceeded amid faint cries of indignation.