“I don’t know what you mean,” he said defensively.

“Of course you don’t—­dash it!” said Colonel Mant.  “We’re coming to that.  And I should like to begin by saying that, though in a sense it was my fault, I fail to see how I could have acted—–­”

“Horace!”

“Oh, very well!  I was only trying to explain.”

Lord Emsworth adjusted his pince-nez and sought inspiration from the wall paper.

“Freddie, my boy,” he began, “we have a somewhat unpleasant—­a somewhat er—­disturbing—­We are compelled to break it to you.  We are all most pained and astounded; and—­”

The Efficient Baxter spoke.  It was plain he was in a bad temper.

“Miss Peters,” he snapped, “has eloped with your friend Emerson.”

Lord Emsworth breathed a sigh of relief.

“Exactly, Baxter.  Precisely!  You have put the thing in a nutshell.  Really, my dear fellow, you are invaluable.”

All eyes searched Freddie’s face for signs of uncontrollable emotion.  The deputation waited anxiously for his first grief-stricken cry.

“Eh?  What?” said Freddie.

“It is quite true, Freddie, my dear boy.  She went to London with him on the ten-fifty.”

“And if I had not been forcibly restrained,” said Baxter acidly, casting a vindictive look at Colonel Mant, “I could have prevented it.”

Colonel Mant cleared his throat again and put a hand to his mustache.

“I’m afraid that is true, Freddie.  It was a most unfortunate misunderstanding.  I’ll tell you how it happened:  I chanced to be at the station bookstall when the train came in.  Mr. Baxter was also in the station.  The train pulled up and this young fellow Emerson got in—­said good-by to us, don’t you know, and got in.  Just as the train was about to start, Miss Peters exclaiming, ‘George dear, I’m going with you—–­, dash it,’ or some such speech—­proceeded to go—­hell for leather—­to the door of young Emerson’s compartment.  On which—–­”

“On which,” interrupted Baxter, “I made a spring to try and catch her.  Apart from any other consideration, the train was already moving and Miss Peters ran considerable risk of injury.  I had hardly moved when I felt a violent jerk at my ankle and fell to the ground.  After I had recovered from the shock, which was not immediately, I found—­”

“The fact is, Freddie, my boy,” the colonel went on, “I acted under a misapprehension.  Nobody can be sorrier for the mistake than I; but recent events in this house had left me with the impression that Mr. Baxter here was not quite responsible for his actions—­overwork or something, I imagined.  I have seen it happen so often in India, don’t you know, where fellows run amuck and kick up the deuce’s own delight.  I am bound to admit that I have been watching Mr. Baxter rather closely lately in the expectation that something of this very kind might happen.

“Of course I now realize my mistake; and I have apologized—­ apologized humbly—­dash it!  But at the moment I was firmly under the impression that our friend here had an attack of some kind and was about to inflict injuries on Miss Peters.  If I’ve seen it happen once in India, I’ve seen it happen a dozen times.