The first really professional excursion of the new motor was to be dedicated to the Great Idea. For the Great Idea, however vaguely it was formulated, was clear about one thing. Premises would be _de rigueur_. It was therefore incumbent on its promoters to inspect premises, both in town and country. At present the latter was the more popular, because the weather was superb, and the notion of incorporating with the Factory a Village Community, and perhaps a Garden City, both in the evening with a flawless Autumn sky, was too tempting to be neglected. So, this afternoon, William Rufus and Sibyl and Lord Felixthorpe--in spite of an impression he gave that he was treating the Great Idea with derision--were to run over to Whealhope Paulswell, about thirty miles off, in the motor, to give that treasure a baptismal run and inspect an extinct factory, which had been empty a quarter of a century. They would be back by dinner-time. Sir Murgatroyd, of whom we have seen nothing, as he has been continually talking about the ruin of English Trade with Mr. Ramsey Tomes, was going to take that gentleman to see some manure. People can look at some manure, and talk about nefarious Germany, both at once. There is reason to suppose that these two gentlemen talked of very little but the ruin of English Trade during the whole of this visit to Royd. And wherever any member of the household was employed--we are recording the impressions of Mr. Alfred Challis--he or she could always hear, in the remote distance, what was only too clearly Mr. Tomes taking this opportunity to state, once for all; or Sir Murgatroyd feeling bound, alike as a Statesman and an Englishman, to protest against. A steady, continuous rumble, on these lines, accompanied the not particularly busy hum of men, women, and chits, that made up the round of life at Royd. The chits, by-the-by, of which there were two or three, naturally involved a corresponding number of young men, each to each; or each in the pocket of each, as you choose. None of them seemed the least ashamed of never having a word to throw at anyone outside the pocket, except its owner, and the rest of Europe seemed by common consent to take no notice of them. And all the while each one, and the contents of its pocket, was, like enough--so thought Mr. Challis--the centre of an incubation of memories that were to last a lifetime. "As they bake, so they will brew," philosophized Mr. Challis to himself, and clouded over a little as he remembered that he, too, was in the twenties once. Four of them played lawn-tennis that afternoon, and the others got somehow lost sight of. No matter!