the road to find your own way home as best you can."

"You have a hard nose," I said doggedly. I was almost sure that the
ear-rings were pearl ear-rings.

There was a pause. The cold was making us silent. My fingers were
getting numbed, but I dared not chafe them. I was afraid of the rug.

"You're not doing much for your drive," she said presently. "Do say
something."

"You want to converse?"

"Yes."

"Very well, then. I didn't see you at Blackpool this year."

"That's curious."

"Yes, isn't it? What's your recreation? Forgive my seeming
inquisitiveness, but I've just joined the staff of Who's Who."

"What?"

"No, who?"

"Recreation?"

"Yes. Hobby, amusement. Don't you collect cats or keep stamps or
motor-boat or mountebank, I mean mountaineer, or anything?"

"No."

"Never mind. I expect you know Oldham rather well, don't you?"

"Not at all."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know it either, and I thought--"

"What?"

"Well, you know, we ought to know Oldham--one of us ought to. It was a
Unionist gain last time."

"Are you a Unionist?"

"My dear, you see in me--at least you would see in me, if it were not
so dark--a high Tory."

"I thought you were a boy-scout."

"The two are not incompatible. Did you see that thing in Ally Sloper
last week?"

"No, I didn't. Here's a gate."

I got down and opened it, and she drove carefully through.

It was the first of seven gates. By the time we had done six, I was
becoming good at getting up and down, but rather tired. As I resumed
my seat for the sixth time, I sighed. For the sixth time she returned
me the reins.

"You don't take much care of your clothes, boy-scout," she said.
"Nearly all the men I know hitch up their trousers when they sit down."

"Perhaps they're sailors."

"No, they aren't."

"My dear girl, I don't know how you can see I don't, but I don't
because I haven't got any on. I mean, I'm wearing breeches."

"Would you hitch them up if you had got on trousers?"

"Let's see, to-day's Thursday. Yes, I should."

"Why do men always bother so about their knees?"

"Take care of the bags, and the coats will take care of themselves," I
observed sententiously.

"But why--?"

Here we came upon the seventh gate.

I groaned.

"Six gates shalt thou labour, and do all that thou hast to do, but the
seventh--"

"Out you get, boy-scout."

I laid a hand on my companion's shoulder. "Are you an