way do I go?"

"Frightfully good of you, old chap," said Lord Dreever. "Sure you
don't mind? I do bar walking. Right-ho! You keep straight on."

He sat down in the tonneau by his aunt's side. The last Jimmy saw
was a hasty vision of him engaged in earnest conversation with Lady
Julia. He did not seem to be enjoying himself. Nobody is at his best
in conversation with a lady whom he knows to be possessed of a firm
belief in the weakness of his intellect. A prolonged conversation
with Lady Julia always made Lord Dreever feel as if he were being
tied into knots.

Jimmy watched them out of sight, and started to follow at a
leisurely pace. It certainly was an ideal afternoon for a country
walk. The sun was just hesitating whether to treat the time as
afternoon or evening. Eventually, it decided that it was evening,
and moderated its beams. After London, the country was deliciously
fresh and cool. Jimmy felt an unwonted content. It seemed to him
just then that the only thing worth doing in the world was to settle
down somewhere with three acres and a cow, and become pastoral.

There was a marked lack of traffic on the road. Once he met a cart,
and once a flock of sheep with a friendly dog. Sometimes, a rabbit
would dash out into the road, stop to listen, and dart into the
opposite hedge, all hind-legs and white scut. But, except for these,
he was alone in the world.

And, gradually, there began to be borne in upon him the conviction
that he had lost his way.

It is difficult to judge distance when one is walking, but it
certainly seemed to Jimmy that he must have covered five miles by
this time. He must have mistaken the way. He had doubtless come
straight. He could not have come straighter. On the other hand, it
would be quite in keeping with the cheap substitute which served the
Earl of Dreever in place of a mind that he should have forgotten to
mention some important turning. Jimmy sat down by the roadside.

As he sat, there came to him from down the road the sound of a
horse's feet, trotting. He got up. Here was somebody at last who
would direct him.

The sound came nearer. The horse turned the corner; and Jimmy saw
with surprise that it bore no rider.

"Hullo?" he said. "Accident? And, by Jove, a side-saddle!"

The curious part of it was that the horse appeared in no way a wild
horse. It gave the impression of being out for a little trot on its
own account, a sort of equine constitutional.

Jimmy stopped t