“Not far,” Delora answered.  “We are taking it easy.”

I looked at his tired face, at the car thick with dust, at the Chinese ambassador already nodding in his corner, and I smiled to myself.  It was very certain to me that they had run from London without stopping, and I felt an intense curiosity as to their destination.  However, I said no more to them.  I made my adieux to Delora, and bowed profoundly to the Chinese ambassador, who opened his eyes in time solemnly to return my farewell.  The chauffeur was already in his place, and I stopped to speak to him.  I saw Delora spring forward and whistle down the speaking-tube, but my question was already asked.

“How far north are you going?” I asked.

“To Newcastle, sir,” the man answered.

He turned then to answer the whistle, and I re-entered my own car.  We started first, but they passed us in a few minutes travelling at a great rate, and with a cloud of dust behind them.  Delora threw an evil glance at me from his place.  For once I had stolen a march upon him.  They had both been too ignorant of their route to keep their final destination concealed from the chauffeur, and they certainly had not expected to meet any one on the way with whom he would be likely to talk!  But why to Newcastle?  I asked myself that question so often during the morning that my shooting became purely a mechanical thing.  Newcastle,—­the Tyne, coals, and shipbuilding!  I could think of nothing else in connection with the place.

Late that evening I sat with a whiskey and soda and final cigar in the smoking-room.  The evening papers had just arrived, brought by motor-bicycle from Norwich.  I found nothing to interest me in them, but, glancing down the columns, my attention was attracted by some mention of Brazil.  I looked to see what the paragraph might be.  It concerned some new battleships, and was headed,—­

    LARGEST BATTLESHIPS IN THE WORLD!

It is not generally known, that there will be launched from the works of Messrs. Halliday & Co. on the Tyne, within the next three or four weeks, two of the most powerful battleships of the “Dreadnought” type, which have yet been built.

There followed some specifications, in which I was not particularly interested, an account of their armament, and a final remark,—­

One is tempted to ask how a country, in the financial position of Brazil, can possibly reconcile it with her ideas of national economy, to spend something like three millions in battleships, which there does not seem to be the slightest chance of her ever being called upon to use!

Somehow or other this paragraph fascinated me.  I read it over and over again.  I could see no connection between it and the visit of Delora to Newcastle, especially accompanied as he was by the Chinese ambassador.  Yet the more I thought of it, the more I felt convinced that in some way the two were connected.  I put down the paper at last, and called out of the room to a motoring friend.