His Lordship's Leopard: A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts

At the sight of this astonishing and utterly unlooked-for personage, the actor and the Englishman stood for a moment gaping at each other in surprised silence. Then, as the full force of what they had done occurred to them, and they realised that, at great risk of life, limb, and freedom, they had rescued from the clutches of the law an utterly worthless tramp, they burst into peals of uncontrollable laughter.

"But where's Violet?" gasped Spotts, who was the first to recover himself.

"Oh, there's a lady in there, if you mean her," said the tramp, indicating the cavernous depths of the Black Maria.

"Yes, I'm here all right," came the welcome tones of the little actress's voice. "I'll be out in just a moment, as soon as I've put myself straight. You're the most reckless drivers I ever saw."

"I'm awfully sorry," said Banborough, approaching the door to help her out. "But circumstances didn't leave us much choice."

"Apparently not," she replied, and a moment later stood in their midst, looking even more bewitching than usual in her dishevelled condition. Then as she drew a long breath, inhaling the fresh woodland air, and realising all the joy of her restored freedom, the eternal feminine reasserted itself, and, seizing both of Spotts's hands, she cried impetuously: "Look at me, Alvy, and tell me if my hat is straight."

They all laughed, which broke the tension of the situation.

"I don't know what you must think of us," said Banborough.

"I thought I was being run away with at first," she said; "but when I heard Alvy's voice on the box I knew it must be all right."

"Of course," continued Cecil, "we hadn't the least idea there was anybody else in the van."

"Oh, I didn't mind so much," she said. "He was quite nice and respectful, and very soft to fall on. I guess he must be all black and blue from the number of times I hit him."

"Well, you're safe, and that's the main thing," said Spotts.

"But what does it all mean?" she demanded.

"Oh, there's time enough for explanations later on," returned the actor. "We're not out of the woods yet."

"Of course we aren't, stupid! Any one can see that."

"Metaphorically, he means," said Cecil. "But, joking apart, this Black Maria is, so to speak particeps criminis, and the sooner we lose it the better."

"Which way shall we go?" she asked.

"Oh, that's been all arranged beforehand with the other members of the party," said Spotts, purposely omitting to mention their destination in the presence of their undesirable companion. "It can't be more than a mile or two across country to the Hudson River Railroad, and we'd better make for the nearest station. Do you feel up to walking?"

"Do I feel up to walking!" she exclaimed. "Well, if you'd been chucked round for an hour without being consulted, I guess you'd feel like doing a little locomotion on your own account." And without another word the three turned to get their belongings.

"Say," interjected the tramp, "where do I come in?"

"Oh, but you don't," said Spotts. "We're going to leave you this beautiful carriage and pair with our blessing. Better take a drive in the country and enjoy the fresh air."

"Yah!" snarled the disreputable one in reply. "That don't go! It's too thin! Why, look here, boss," he continued, addressing Banborough, "you went and 'scaped with me without so much as sayin' by your leave, and now, when you've gone and laid me open to extra time for evadin' of my penalty, you've got the cheek to propose to leave me alone in a cold world with that!" And he pointed expressively at the Black Maria.

"It is rather hard lines," admitted Cecil. "But, you see, it would never do to have you with us, my man. Why, your clothes would give us away directly."

"And I'll give yer away directly to the cops if you don't take me along."

Banborough and Spotts looked at each other in redoubled perplexity.

"You see," continued the anarchist, "I don't go for to blow on no blokes as has stood by me as youse has, but it's sink or swim together. Besides, you'd get lost in this country in no time, while I knows it well. Why, I burgled here as a boy."

"What's to be done?" asked Cecil.

"Oh, I suppose we've got to take him along," replied the actor. "We're all in the same boat, if it comes to that."

"Now if youse gents," suggested the tramp, "could find an extra pair of pants between you, this coat and hat would suit me down to the ground." And he laid a dirty paw on Banborough's discarded garments.

"No you don't!" cried that gentleman, hastily recovering his possessions. "Haven't you got any clothes in that bag of yours, Spotts?"

"Well, I have got a costume, Bishop, and that's a fact," replied the actor; "but it's hardly in his line, I should think."

"What is it?" asked the Englishman. "You seem about of a size."

"It's a Quaker outfit. I used it in a curtain-raiser we were playing."

"That would do very well," said Cecil, "if it isn't too pronounced."

"Oh, it's tame enough," replied the actor, who exercised a restraint in his art for which those who met him casually did not give him credit. Indeed, among the many admirable qualities which led people to predict a brilliant future for Spotts was the fact that he never overdid anything.

"Huh!" grunted the tramp, "I dunno but what I'd as lieve sport a shovel hat as the suit of bedticking they give yer up the river. I used to work round Philidelphy some, and I guess I could do the lingo."

"Give them to him," said Banborough. "I'll make it good to you."

"Well, take them, then," replied Spotts regretfully, handing their unwelcome companion the outfit which he produced from his bag, adding as he pointed to the woods: "Get in there and change quickly. We ought to be moving."

The tramp made one step towards the underbrush, and then, pausing doubtfully, said:

"You don't happen to have a razor and a bit of looking-glass about yer, do yer? I see there's a brook here, and there ain't nothin' Quakery about my beard."

The actor's face was a study.

"I'm afraid there's no escape from it, old man," remarked Cecil. "If you've your shaving materials with you, let him have them."

"There they are. You needn't trouble to return them."

Their recipient grinned appreciatively, and as the last rustle of his retirement into privacy died away, Miss Arminster turned to Banborough and demanded:

"Now tell me what I was arrested for, why you two ran away with me, and where I'm being taken."

"I can answer the first of those questions," broke in Spotts. "You're a Spanish sympathiser and a political spy."

"I'm nothing of the sort, as you know very well!" she replied, colouring violently. "I'm the leading lady of the A. B. C. Company."

"Of course we know it," returned the actor; "but the police have chosen to take a different view of the matter."

"Why is he chaffing me like this?" she said, appealing to Cecil.

"I'm afraid it's a grim reality," he replied. "You see, when the Spanish officials were turned out of Washington, they'd the impertinence to take the title of my book as their password."