"Don’t keep the gentleman waiting!" said Eves, already enjoying himself. The turn things had taken seemed to carry prospects of what he called a "splendid rag." Templeton asked the chauffeur to step out, and taking his place, started the car, listening intently. "There! Didn’t I tell yer?" said the owner, trotting alongside. "What’s wrong, eh?" Templeton pulled up within a few yards, and backed. "Oil," he said, laconically. "Your big ends are going." "Big ends! What the jooce! Here, you Thomson, why didn’t you give the engine no oil?" "’Cos there warn’t none," said the chauffeur, sulkily. "I told yer——" "None of yer lip, now! Well, if it’s only oil—Here, mister, oil up, and look sharp about it! None of yer country dawdling: get a move on!" Templeton looked over the side of the car, and said quietly, in his mild considered way: "I should just like to remark that unless you can moderate your impatience, or curb your somewhat insolent expression of it, you may take yourself and your car elsewhere." "Yes," cut in Eves, who had come out into the road. "If I were you, young feller, I’d jolly well chuck him into the horse-pond." [Illustration: "’YES,’ CUT IN EVES, WHO HAD COME OUT INTO THE ROAD. ’IF I WERE YOU, YOUNG FELLER, I’D JOLLY WELL CHUCK HIM INTO THE HORSE-POND.’"] The stranger looked from one to the other, his astonishment at Templeton’s address yielding to wrath. "Who are you a-talking to?" he cried, making an aggressive move towards Eves. "Not to you, my dear sir, not to you. I was merely telling this young feller what I should do if I were he, and you may thank your lucky stars I’m not." The man eyed the speaker truculently, as if meditating chastisement; but Eves, in spite of the blue band on his arm, looked so well knit, so vigorous, that valour subsided into discretion. Muttering something about "young pups in khaki," the stranger turned towards the car, saw that Templeton had begun lubricating, and strolled across the yard towards a strange vehicle standing outside the garage. "Here, Thomson, come and look at this," he called. For a few minutes the two men walked round the vehicle, discussing its appearance, laughing as one pointed out this or that feature to the other. "It ain’t a car," said the chauffeur. "More like a boat," said his employer. "This here’s a mast, ain’t it? P’raps it’s one of them hydroplanes." "They’re the same as airyplanes without the wheels. My idea it’s an agricultural implement: now-a-days they’ve all sorts of rum contraptions in country parts." They examined the vehicle, perfunctorily and without knowledge, until Templeton called out that the oiling was finished. "Quite time too," said the stranger, looking at his watch. "She’ll go all right?" he asked, as he rejoined Templeton in the road.