That's the worst of
these small watering-places; one can't escape from
anybody.''
``I'll fight a rearguard action for you if you like to do
a bolt now,'' volunteered Clovis; ``you've a clear ten yards
start if you don't lose time.''
The aunt of Clovis responded gamely to the suggestion, and
churned away like a Nile steamer, with a long brown ripple
of Pekingese spaniel trailing in her wake.
``Pretend you don't know him,'' was her parting advice,
tinged with the reckless courage of the non-combatant.
The next moment the overtures of an affably disposed
gentleman were being received by Clovis with a
``silent-upon-a-peak-in-Darien'' stare which denoted an
absence of all previous acquaintance with the object
scrutinized.
``I expect you don't know me with my moustache,'' said the
new-comer; ``I've only grown it during the last two
months.''
``On the contrary,'' said Clovis, ``the moustache is the
only thing about you that seemed familiar to me. I felt
certain that I had met it somewhere before.''
``My name is Tarrington,'' resumed the candidate for
recognition.
``A very useful kind of name,'' said Clovis; ``with a name
of that sort no one would blame you if you did nothing in
particular heroic or remarkable, would they? And yet if you
were to raise a troop of light horse in a moment of national
emergency, `Tarrington's Light Horse' would sound quite
appropriate and pulse-quickening; whereas if you were called
Spoopin, for instance, the thing would be out of the
question.
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