It happened that upon a certain bright morning in August a smart motor-cycle with side-car attachment went teuf-teufing along the high road in the direction of the Forest. The side-car was occupied by a girl with violently red hair, and the whole installation was manœuvred by an individual in mackintosh overalls, who was (although you might never have guessed it by looking at him) a Disraelian Conservative and an un-Marxian Socialist.... Catherine, incidentally, was riding in a side-car for the first time in her life. George, incidentally, was driving a motor-cycle, if not for the first time, at any rate for the third or fourth time in his life. The machine was brand-new. One or two lessons on a friend’s motor-bike (to which there was no side-car) had convinced George that he was capable of taking a young lady for a hundred miles’ spin in the country without undue risks. Accordingly, he had purchased a machine out of the accumulated savings of several years, and had written to Catherine the following note: DEAR CATHIE, I have just bought a motor-bike and side-car. I shall run it round a bit next Saturday, if fine, and should be pleased to take you if you care to come. And when he had met her (by arrangement) at the corner of the Ridgeway, he had said, offhand: “You see, there must be somebody in the side-car or else you don’t give the thing a fair chance.” And the implication was: “You are nothing but ballast, my dear girl; a sack of potatoes would have done just as well, only you are more easily procurable.” Somehow the beautiful shining enamelled creature bristling with taps and levers and handles made him talk with a cultivated brusqueness. It was as if the machine occupied the first place in his attentions and she came next. At the moment this may very likely have been true. She seated herself snugly in the torpedo-shaped car, and watched him manipulate levers and buttons. He looked very strong and masculine in his overalls. For several minutes he tried in vain to induce a liveliness in the engine. The policeman on point duty at the corner (who knew Catherine) smiled; some street urchins shouted facetious remarks. After five minutes of intense examination he pounced upon an apparently vulnerable part of the mechanism and performed a subtle and invisible operation. Then he pushed off, and the engine woke into clamorous applause. They began to move. The street urchins cheered ironically. “I thought that would do it,” he shouted to her triumphantly above the din, with the air of one who had performed a masterpiece of mechanical surgery. Yet to himself he blushed. For he had forgotten to admit the petrol from the tank! § 8 When they reached Epping, George told himself: “It’s absurdly easy to drive a motor-bike and side-car. Absolutely nothing in it. I’ll put the pace on a bit between here and Stortford.” The thirteen miles to Bishop’s Stortford were done in twenty-eight minutes. At Stortford they had early lunch.