n the daylight.

At some distance from the gate appeared the usual notice as to
speed-limit. McKeogh, most scrupulous of drivers, obeyed. As there was a
knot of idlers underneath and beyond the gate he slowed down to a crawl,
sounding a patient and monotonous horn. We advanced; the peasant folk
cleared the way sullenly and suspiciously. Then, deliberately, an
elderly man started to cross the road, and on the sound of the horn
stood stock still, with resentful defiance on his weather-beaten face.
McKeogh jammed on the brakes. The car halted. But the infinitesimal
fraction of a second before it came to a dead stop the wing over the
near front wheel touched the elderly person and down he went on the
ground. I leaped from the car, to be instantly surrounded by an
infuriated crowd, which seemed to gather from all the quarters of
the broad, decaying square. The elderly man, helped to his feet by
sympathetic hands, shook his knotted fists in my face. He was a dour and
ugly peasant, of splendid physique, as hard and discoloured as the walls
of Aigues-Mortes; his cunning eyes were as clear as a boy's, his lined,
clean-shaven face as rigid as a gargoyle; and the back of his neck,
above the low collar of his jersey, showed itself seamed into glazed
irregular lozenges, like the hide of a crocodile. He cursed me and my
kind healthily in very bad French and apostrophized his friends in
Provencal, who in Provencal and bad French made responsive clamour. I
had knocked him down on purpose. He was crippled for life. Who was I to
go tearing through peaceful towns with my execrated locomotive and
massacring innocent people? I tried to explain that the fault was his,
and that, after all, to judge by the strength of his lungs, no great
damage had been inflicted. But no. They would not let it go like that.
There were the gendarmes--I looked across the square and saw two
gendarmes striding portentously towards the scene--they would see
justice done. The law was there to protect poor folk. For a certainty I
would not get off easily.

[Illustration: I HAD KNOCKED HIM DOWN ON PURPOSE. HE WAS CRIPPLED
FOR LIFE]

I knew what would happen. The gendarmes would submit McKeogh and myself
to a _proces-verbal_. They would impound the car. I should have to go
to the Mairie and make endless depositions. I should have to wait,
Heaven knows how long, before I could appear before the _juge de paix_.
I should have to find a solicitor to rep