"Poco tempo--pochissimo!" he wailed. "Bloom-buree Ske-warr," he
then cried to the cabman--"numero trentotto!"
"Bloomsbury Square," I roared on my own account, "I'll show you
the house when we get there, only drive like be-damned!"
My companion lay back gasping in his corner. The small glass
told me that my own face was pretty red.
"A nice show!" I cried; "and not a word can you tell me. Didn't
you bring me a note?"
I might have known by this time that he had not, still I went
through the pantomime of writing with my finger on my cuff. But
he shrugged and shook his head.
"Niente," said he. "Una quistione di vita, di vita!"
"What's that?" I snapped, my early training come in again. "Say
it slowly--andante--rallentando."
Thank Italy for the stage instructions in the songs one used to
murder! The fellow actually understood.
"Una--quistione--di--vita."
"Or mors, eh?" I shouted, and up went the trap-door over our
heads.
"Avanti, avanti, avanti!" cried the Italian, turning up his
one-eyed face.
"Hell-to-leather," I translated, "and double fare if you do it
by twelve o'clock."
But in the streets of London how is one to know the time? In
the Earl's Court Road it had not been half-past, and at Barker's
in High Street it was but a minute later. A long half-mile a
minute, that was going like the wind, and indeed we had done
much of it at a gallop.
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