the thing could not have happened. Grubb wass short and
inattentive with him, and the young man withdrew to the back of the
crowd, and there told the benevolent old gentleman in the silk hat
that people who went out with machines they didn't understand had only
themselves to blame if things went wrong.

The old gentleman let him talk for some time, and then remarked, in a
tone of rapturous enjoyment: "Stone deaf," and added, "Nasty things."

A rosy-faced man in a straw hat claimed attention. "I DID save the front
wheel," he said; "you'd have had that tyre catch, too, if I hadn't kept
turning it round." It became manifest that this was so. The front wheel
had retained its tyre, was intact, was still rotating slowly among the
blackened and twisted ruins of the rest of the machine. It had something
of that air of conscious virtue, of unimpeachable respectability, that
distinguishes a rent collector in a low neighbourhood. "That wheel's
worth a pound," said the rosy-faced man, making a song of it. "I kep'
turning it round."

Newcomers kept arriving from the south with the question, "What's up?"
until it got on Grubb's nerves. Londonward the crowd was constantly
losing people; they would mount their various wheels with the satisfied
manner of spectators who have had the best. Their voices would recede
into the twilight; one would hear a laugh at the memory of this
particularly salient incident or that.

"I'm afraid," said the gentleman of the motor-car, "my tarpaulin's a bit
done for."

Grubb admitted that the owner was the best judge of that.

"Nothin, else I can do for you?" said the gentleman of the motor-car, it
may be with a suspicion of irony.

Bert was roused to action. "Look here," he said. "There's my young lady.
If she ain't 'ome by ten they lock her out. See? Well, all my money was
in my jacket pocket, and it's all mixed up with the burnt stuff, and
that's too 'ot to touch. Is Clapham out of your way?"

"All in the day's work," said the gentleman with the motor-car, and
turned to Edna. "Very pleased indeed," he said, "if you'll come with us.
We're late for dinner as it is, so it won't make much difference for us
to go home by way of Clapham. We've got to get to Surbiton, anyhow. I'm
afraid you'll find us a little slow."

"But what's Bert going to do?" said Edna.

"I don't know that we can accommodate Bert," said the motor-car
gentleman, "though we're tremendously anxious to oblige."

"You couldn't tak