"No, really. I have been meaning to ask you for weeks. That's why I rode over here this afternoon," blurted out Derek. "I thought you said you were just out for a ride," remarked Miss Mablethorpe. (It is quite a mistake to suppose that it is only small boys who are cruel to the humbler members of creation.) Derek floundered helplessly, and was dumb. From afar came the melodious toot of a well-modulated Gabriel horn. Dumps sat up, and looked sharply up the road. "Well, anyway, will you be my partner?" asked Derek, lifting his eyes once more. He was surprised and not a little gratified to observe that Miss Sylvia had turned excessively pink. "Yes--perhaps. No. All right," replied the girl shortly. "I must go now. Good-bye. See you on Thursday." By way of intimating that the audience was terminated, Miss Mablethorpe swung her ankles--they had grown quite slim these days--over the wall and disappeared with a thud. Mr. Rayner, on the whole much puffed up, galloped away. Two minutes later an automobile, consisting chiefly of a chassis, with a single wooden seat lashed to the frame, slid to a standstill outside the gates of Red Gables. On the back of the seat, in bold letters, was painted the legend, "Britannia Motor Company, Coventry." In the seat sat Philip. The car had hardly stopped when the gates were swung open and Dumps appeared, smiling welcome. "Hallo, Philip!" she said. "Is this our new car?" "Not quite," said Philip, surveying his dingy but workmanlike equipage. "This is my service-car. They are sending yours on Monday." By this time the girl had clambered on to the back of the chassis and ensconced herself on the petrol-tank. Philip, turning the car in through the gates, drove up the short straight avenue to the front door. The purring of the big engine ceased, and the pair, having alighted, passed arm-in-arm, like brother and sister, into the presence of Mr. Mablethorpe. That excellent but volcanic author was discovered tearing his hair with one hand, and digging holes in a long galley proof (employing a fountain-pen as a stiletto) with the other. "Hallo, Philip!" he began at once. "Will you have a bet with me?" "Certainly," said Philip. "What about?" "I bet you one million pounds," said Mr. Mablethorpe with great precision, "that the condemned printing-firm employed by my unmentionable publishers has taken into its adjectival employment an asterisked staff of obelised female compositors. Consequently I shall have to retire to an asylum. It is a nuisance, because I have just bought a new automobile." "How are you so certain about the female compositors?" asked Philip. The author pathetically flapped the long printed slip in his face.