When I had listened to as much as I dared without bursting with laughter, which came when the landlord stoutly declared that his "midden" was not public property, I escaped to the stable-yard and, as I drove by the bar-window, heard the exasperating voice of the doctor proclaiming, "Indeed, I could tell you of a case, not five miles from here, to which, if I had not been called immediately," etc. VIII THE END OF THE NORTH ROAD I suppose my mind was full of Fielding and the essential immobility of the English character, which illustrates so well Goethe's saying, "Men change but Man remains the same," when I was jerked as it were out of the eighteenth century into the twentieth by the violent blowing of a motor-horn. Looking up I saw a large touring-car, driven at great speed and heading straight for me. I blew my horn in reply, and expected to see the approaching car swerve to the other side of the road. But, instead, it came rushing on, and a head-on collision seemed inevitable. It was now too late to escape by turning out, and so, not knowing what to do, I did what proved to be the best thing possible, I brought my car to a sudden stop and waited for the impact! I supposed the driver of the other car was drunk. But evidently he was not so drunk as to plunge into another car, for, with a frightful grinding of brakes he checked his car, the headlights of the two almost touching. I was too confused to say anything, and so we sat for a moment gazing at one another. He spoke first, and you may imagine my surprise when he said, in a tolerant tone: "Drunk?" To have my suspicion of him so quickly thrown back upon me so paralyzed me that I was speechless, and simply continued to stare. "I say," finally remarked my opponent, "are you going to turn out, or are you looking for trouble?" There was a lady, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say a female, sitting in the tonneau, and she suddenly called out: "Henry, it is an American, and he is on the wrong side of the road!" It was true! In spite of warnings and good intentions, I had left the car in charge of what De Maistre calls one's _bête_, but what we think it more elegant to call the "subconscious," while my "self" had slipped back into the past to hold converse with the mighty. It was a foolish-looking "_bête_" which smiled at the lady. But there was no answering smile. Indeed, she was quite enraged, and while her husband--I hope it was her husband--backed his car and crossed to the other side of the road, much as one would go round a sweep rather than touch him, she stood up in the car and, in a tone worthy of Mrs. Raddles, told me what she thought of me and of my unhappy country. It was not "hands," it was "_claws_," across the sea!