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 “What is it?” he asked, coming up; “what has happened?”

“Something dreadful, sir; awful motor ac- cident. The poor gentleman is inside.”

Not waiting to hear more he rushed into the little sitting-room and beheld a man lying on the couch. Over him hung a person in the dress of a chauffeur, while a third person, an unmistakable farm hand, gazed with some con- cern from his position near the window. At Vermont’s entrance the chauffeur looked round.

“What has happened?”

“Collision,” said the man.

“Ts he much hurt?”

“T hope not, sir.”

“No, I’m not hurt,” cried a voice from the sofa, a voice full of peevishness and irritability. “Tt was your damned stupidity, or the stupid- ity of that thick-headed yokel, I don’t know which.”

The yokel maintained an attitude of supreme impassivity, but the chauffeur flushed.

“T don’t think it was my fault, Sir Digby.”

“What does it matter whose fault it was?