one o'clock
-- we may pick up someone on the road . '' Starting on the switch , the car sprang off towards Piccadilly . Dale sighed in his relief . With ordinary luck , they ought to reach Epsom before one o'clock , and racing did not begin till half an hour later . He left wholly out of reckoning the mysterious element in human affairs that allots adventures to the adventurous , though close association with Viscount Medenham during the past nine months ought to have taught him the wisdom of caution . Several chapters of a very interesting book might be supplied by his lordship 's motoring experiences on the Continent , and these would only supplement the still more checkered biography of one who , at the close of the Boer War , elected to shoot his way home through the Mid-African haunts of big game rather than return by orthodox troopship . On the face of things , it was absurd to imagine that a self-confessed wanderer should be permitted to see his first Derby in the sacrosanct company of a stout aunt and a well-filled luncheon basket .