POST-PRANDIAL
eye. "I leave it to you," he replied politely. "Just as you please."
The driver gasped.
"You see," Maitland continued with a courteous smile, "I have two engagements: one at Sherry's, the other with the ten-twenty train from Long Island City. What would you, as man to man, advise me to do, cabby?"
"Well, sir, seein' as you puts it to me straight," returned the cabby with engaging candor, "I'd go home, sir, if I was you, afore I got any worse."
"Thank you," gravely. "Long Island City depôt, then, cabby."
Maitland extended himself languidly upon the cushions. "Surely," he told the night, "the driver knows best—he and Bannerman."
The cab started off jogging so sedately up Madison Avenue that Maitland glanced at his watch and elevated his brows dubiously; then with his stick poked open the trap in the roof.
"If you really think it best for me to go home,
33
