And then, dispersedly, in their order and according to their natures, the others.... There was fortunately very little on the road. There was a perambulator containing twins, whose little girl guardian was so fortunate as to be high up on the bank gathering blackberries. A ditcher, ditching. A hawker lost in thought. His cart, drawn by a poor little black screw of a pony and loaded with the cheap flawed crockery that is so popular among the poor. A dog asleep in the middle of the village street.... Amidst this choice of objects the caravan displayed a whimsical humanity. It reduced the children in the perambulator to tears, but passed. It might have reduced them to a sort of red-currant jelly. It lurched heavily towards the ditcher and spared him, it chased the hawker up the bank, it whipped off a wheel from the cart of crockery (which after an interval of astonishment fell like a vast objurgation) and then it directed its course with a grim intentness towards the dog. It just missed the dog. He woke up not a moment too soon. He fled with a yelp of dismay. And then the caravan careered on a dozen yards further, lost energy and—the only really undignified thing in its whole career—stood on its head in a wide wet ditch. It did this with just the slightest lapse into emphasis. _There!_ It was as if it gave a grunt—and perhaps there was the faintest suggestion of William in that grunt—and then it became quite still.... For a time the caravan seemed finished and done. Its steps hung from its upper end like the tongue of a tired dog. Except for a few minute noises as though it was scratching itself inside, it was as inanimate as death itself. But up the hill road the twins were weeping, the hawker and the ditcher were saying raucous things, the hawker’s pony had backed into the ditch and was taking ill-advised steps, for which it was afterwards to be sorry, amidst his stock-in-trade, and Professor Bowles, Mrs. Bowles, Mr. Geedge, Captain Douglas and Mrs. Geedge were running—running—one heard the various patter of their feet. And then came signs of life at the upward door of the caravan, a hand, an arm, an active investigating leg seeking a hold, a large nose, a small intent vicious eye; in fact—William. William maddened. Professor Bowles had reached the caravan. With a startling agility he clambered up by the wheels and step and confronted the unfortunate driver. It was an occasion for mutual sympathy rather than anger, but the Professor was hasty, efficient and unsympathetic with the lower classes, and William’s was an ill-regulated temperament. “You consummate _ass_!” began Professor Bowles.... When William heard Professor Bowles say this, incontinently he smote him in the face, and when Professor Bowles was smitten in the face he grappled instantly and very bravely and resolutely with William.