"Back tyre," replied Mr. Carmyle shortly, disencumbering himself of his rug. They stepped out upon the muddy road and examined the off-hind wheel. The tyre was flat, but apparently whole. "It is the valve," announced Carmyle, after unscrewing the dust-cap. "Blown himself clean out of bed. That means a fresh inner tube. And I lent the Stepney wheel to a broken-down car coming along this morning!" "Bad luck!" said Dicky speciously, glancing up at the pine wood. "Can Tilly and I help?" "No, better run away and play." Dicky and Tilly, without further insincerities, obeyed at once. "I fear you will besmirch yourself, comrade," said Dicky over his shoulder, as they departed. "Bet you half-a-crown I don’t even dirty my gloves," replied Carmyle. "No: you’ll take them off," replied the astute Richard. "No, kid!" persisted Carmyle. "I undertake to get a new inner tube put into this tyre without laying a finger on it. Is it a bet?" "Is Connie going to do it?" asked Dicky incredulously. "She is and she is n’t. She won’t lay a finger on the tyre either, though. Will you stake your half-crown like a man?" "I suppose there is a catch about it somewhere," said The Freak resignedly. "Still, I fancy we must humour the young people, Tilly. All right, my lad." Mr. Carmyle turned to his wife. "Show them, Connie," he said. His dutiful helpmeet selected a large tyre-lever, and sitting down in the midst of the King’s highway upon the tool-box, in a position which combined the maximum of discomfort with the minimum of leverage, began to pick helplessly at the rim of the wheel. Occasionally she looked up and smiled pathetically. "Will that do, Bill dear?" she enquired. "Yes; but try and look a bit more of an idiot." Mrs. Carmyle complied. "Now you’re overdoing it," said her stage-manager severely. "Don’t loll your tongue out like a poodle’s! _That’s_ better. Hallo, I believe I can hear a car already! Come on, you two--into this wood!" Next moment Tilly, beginning dimly to comprehend, was propelled over a split-rail fence by two muscular gentlemen and bustled into the fastnesses of the pine wood. The Casabianca-like Connie remained in an attitude of appealing helplessness upon the tool-box. The pine wood ran up the side of a hill. The trio climbed a short distance, and then turned to survey the scene below them. Round the bend of the road came a car--a bulky, heavy, opulent limousine, going thirty-five miles an hour, and carrying a cargo of fur coats and diamonds. "Rolls-Royce. Something-in-the-City going down to lunch at Brighton," commented Dicky. "That’s the wrong sort, anyhow." "Connie will be run over," cried Tilly apprehensively. "Not she," replied the callous Carmyle. He was right. Connie, diagnosing the character of the approaching vehicle from afar, had already stepped round to the near side of her own, escaping a shower bath of mud and possibly a compound fracture.