It was an awful time for us; every minute I expected him to burst the
door open and come tearing downstairs. Gerald wanted to go up and try to
pacify him, but I told him I was too frightened to be left, which, I
knew, was the only way of preventing him.
We walked down the garden to see if mother and father were in sight, and
then----
"Awfully sorry we missed the train," said a cheerful voice, and _Jack_,
followed by another figure, came through the gate!
"You aren't dead then?" was all I could manage to gasp.
"No, rather not! Very much alive. Here's the pater; but first, tell me,
why should I be dead?"
Gerald and I began to speak simultaneously, and in the midst of our
explanations mother and father arrived, so we had to tell them all over
again.
"The question is, who _is_ your lunatic?" said father, "and----"
But just at that moment we heard frantic shouts from Gerald's bedroom
window, and found the sham Mr. Marriott leaning out of it in a state of
frenzy.
He was absolutely furious; but we gathered from his incoherent remarks
that he was getting very late for a conjuring performance which he had
promised to give at a friend's house. He vowed that there was some
conspiracy to prevent him going there at all; first his bag was lost,
then some one pretended to be his friend's daughter, whom he had never
seen, and finally he was locked in a room with no means of escape!
[Sidenote: Our Little Mistake]
Then, and only then, did we realise our mistake! The others seemed to
find it very amusing and shrieked with laughter, but the humour of it
didn't strike Gerald and me any more than it did the irate conjuror, who
was promptly released with profuse apologies, and sent in our car to his
destination.
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