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 while you’re doing it, or you’ll get ditched!" I cried, as the car ran down the road.

"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. "But, after all, it’s your steamin’ gadgets he’s usin for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me after breakfast only this mornin’ ’ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours, that he wouldn’t see nor smell nor thumb a runnin’ bulgine till the nineteenth prox. Now look at him! Only look at ’im!"

We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to hedge.

"What happens if he upsets?"

"The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up."

"How rambunkshus! And"—Pyecroft blew a slow cloud—"Agg’s about three hoops up this mornin’, too."

"What’s that to do with us? He’s gone down the road," I retorted.

"Ye—es, but we’ll overtake him. He’s a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch ’ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O’ course, Hinch don’t know the elements o’ that evolution; but he fell back on ’is naval rank an’ office, an’ Agg grew peevish. I wasn’t sorry to get out of the cart. . . . Have you ever considered how, when you an’ I meet, so to say, there’s nearly always a remarkably hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat returnin’!"

He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: "In bow! Way ’nuff!"