So the chauffeur got into his place, and Uncle Popacatapetl came out covered with apples and match-boxes and things like a Christmas-tree, and at the very last moment David undid the buttons of the cords to the aeroplanes, and away they flew, leaving the airmen gazing up at them. Then he shut the door, and he and Uncle Popacatapetl drove off at a hundred miles an hour down the street to the bridge. ‘Turn to the left when you get over the bridge,’ shouted David, ‘and drive over the fields till you come to our lake. You’ll have to jump that, but after that there’s only the garden.’ ‘She ain’t been jumping much lately,’ said the chauffeur. ‘It can’t be helped,’ shouted David. ‘Then go to the garden door. I’ll hide you in the game-cupboard,’ he explained to his uncle. ‘There’s lots of room there now all the games have gone.’ Suddenly there came an awful crash. They had run into the railing of the bridge, and the whole motor-car flew into several million small pieces, and there were David and his uncle standing in the middle of the road. Uncle Popacatapetl began whimpering again. ‘I’m a poor old man,’ he said, ‘and I don’t know whether I’m standing on my head or my heels.’ David looked at him attentively. ‘I think you’re standing on your heels,’ he said, ‘but it’s so dark I can’t tell you for certain. Wait till I light a match.’ There came a noise of running behind them, and, before David could be sure whether his uncle was on his head or his heels, he saw the porter and the Mint-man and the bank manager rushing down the street towards them. At that very moment the telegraph wires began to sing, as they always do when a telegram is coming along them, and looking up he saw a very long one with its mackintosh on sliding down the wires. It was so long that it came within six or seven feet of the ground. ‘Quick, jump and catch hold of it,’ said David, ‘and then you’ll be safe.’ Twice Uncle Popacatapetl tried to jump, but he couldn’t jump far because he was so heavy, and the Mint-man with the meat-chopper in his hand was close upon them. But the kind good telegram, which was reply-paid, reached down a hand, and pulled him up at the very moment the Mint-man and the manager were grabbing at him. They just missed him, and the Mint-man being unable to stop himself flew over the railing of the bridge, followed by the manager and the porter, and they all fell into the river with three splashes, each louder than all the rest put together. [Illustration: The telegram rescues Uncle P. from the Mint-man] By this time the telegram and Uncle Popacatapetl were far away out of sight, and as the chauffeur had vanished too, there was little use in David’s remaining on the bridge all alone. He tried, as long as his match burned, to put together some pieces of the motor-car, but when that went out, it was like doing the most awful jig-saw puzzle in the dark.