scoop and whanged Mr. Poodle across the skull. The Bishop came
dangerously near reaching him, but Gissing released a jet of scalding
steam from an exhaust-cock, which gave the impetuous prelate much cause
for grief. A lump of coal, accurately thrown, discouraged Mr. Airedale.
Mr. Towser, attacking on the other side of the engine, managed to
scramble up so high that he carried away the embroidered stole, but
otherwise the fugitive had all the best of it. Mr. Dobermann-Pinscher
burned his feet trying to climb up the side of the boiler. From the
summit of his uncouth vehicle Gissing looked down undismayed.

"Miserable freethinker!" said Borzoi. "You shall be tried by the
assembly of bishops."

"In a mere lay reader," quoted Gissing, "a slight laxity is allowable.
You had better go back and calm down the congregation, or they'll tear
the chapel to bits. This kind of thing will have a very bad influence on
church discipline."

They shouted additional menace, but Gissing had already started his
deafening machinery and could not hear what was said. He left them
bickering by the roadside.

For fear of further pursuit, he turned off the highway a little beyond,
and rumbled noisily down a rustic lane between high banks and hedges
where sumac was turning red. Strangely enough, there was something very
comforting about his enormous crawling contraption. It was docile and
reliable, like an elephant. The crashing clangour of its movement was
soon forgotten--became, in fact, an actual stimulus to thought. For the
mere pleasure of novelty, he steered through a copse, and took joy in
seeing the monster thrash its way through thickets and brambles, and
then across a field of crackling stubble. Steering toward the lonelier
regions of that farming country, presently he halted in a dingle of
birches beside a small pond. He spent some time very happily, carefully
studying the machinery. He found some waste and an oilcan in the
tool-chest, and polished until the metal shone. The water looked rather
low in the gauge, and he replenished it from the pool.

It was while grooming the roller that it struck him his own appearance
was unusual for a highway mechanic. He was still wearing the famous
floorwalker suit, which he had punctiliously donned every Sunday for
chapel. But he had had to flee without a hat--even without his luggage,
which was neatly packed in a bag in the vestry. That, he felt sure, Mr.
Poodle had already burst open for evide