"It wasn’t a rag at all. The fact is, the staff-major was too impatient. He wouldn’t wait till I’d finished explaining the idea, and the result was what you might have expected. It was his own fault—the idea’s all right." "What about your gas machine, then?" "Well, what about it?" The inventor was roused: he stood facing Eves, with the air of a cat whose fur has been rubbed the wrong way. "The story that came to us was that you nearly caused a vacancy in the command of your battalion. Everybody said you were taking a short cut to getting your second pip." "Asses!" growled Templeton. "The explanation simply is that a screw was a trifle loose——" "Now nobody said that, Bob, I assure you. Everybody said you were an awfully clever chap, only——" "I tell you a screw was a bit loose, owing to the lack of suitable appliances, and the gas came out a second or two before it ought. And the C.O. needn’t have put his nose quite so close to the machine: I didn’t ask him to!" "I suppose the adjutant was too inquisitive, then. Not that time; I mean when you were trying that self-adjusting bomb of yours. The Brigade Bombing Officer was full of it, and the mess were quite jealous, because we never had such rags on our sector." "Rags!" snorted Templeton in disgust. "I hate the word! You know perfectly well that I never rag. That self-adjusting bomb was a very serious matter." "Quite so. It’s only lucky it wasn’t more serious, isn’t it? We were told it cost your adjutant his left eyebrow and half a promising moustache." "Grossly exaggerated!" Templeton exclaimed. "As Mark Twain said when he read the report of his own death! But what’s this, Bob?" A long green motor-car was drawing up slowly and noisily in front of the garage, emitting a cloud of smoke. From the seat beside the chauffeur sprang a large man, wearing a heavily furred coat. He came round the car and called out, before he reached the open door of the repairing shop: "Here, I say there! Can you do anythink for this car? My fool of a shover can’t find out what’s wrong, and we’ll crock up altogether if we go on like this. The engine’s knocking like anythink." By this time he had reached the doorway, and he stood there facing Templeton, after shooting one brief glance at Eves on the bench. Templeton, looking a little more solemn even than usual—or perhaps his expression was partly due to the black smears on his face—had not time to reply before Eves put in a word. "Can yer do anythink for the gentleman?" he said. "P’raps you’ve got another car handy?" said the stranger. "No, there’s none in just now," replied Templeton. "Can’t you find one? Look here, young feller, I’ll make it worth yer while. I’ve got to call on the mayor and be at the camp inside of an hour. What yer say?" "There’s not another car in the place. They’re all at the camp." "Well, then, you got to do somethink, and look alive!"