I should dearly have liked to wait and wring his neck on arrival, but naturally Ronnie's welfare came first.

I could not catch the night boat at the Hague, but I dashed off via Brussels, crossed from Boulogne this morning, reached London forty minutes too late for the 3 o'clock train to Hollymead.

There was no other until five, and that a slow one.

So I taxied off to a man I know in town who owns several cars, borrowed his fastest, and raced down here, forty miles an hour.

Even then I got here too late.