"What for?" was the bitter reply. "My future estate? Possibly. I have no doubt that there it will be my blithesome duty continually to back a charabanc with a fierce clutch up an interminable equivalent of the Eiffel Tower. At present----" "And you were driving so beautifully," said his wife. "What--not with _finesse_?" said her husband. "Rather," said I. "Ginger, too." "What d'you mean--'ginger'?"--suspiciously. "Determination," said I hurriedly. "Not the b-b-bull-dog b-b-breed?" "The same," said I. "All underhung. 'Shove-me-and-I'll-shove-your-face' sort of air. It was most noticeable." Berry slammed the door and felt for the self-starter.... As we bucketed down the next slope-- "I only wish," he said, "that we could encounter the deceitful monger responsible for including this road among _les grands itinéraires_. I can stand pot-holes, but the remains of a railway platform which might have been brought from one of what we know as 'the stricken areas,' laid, like linoleum, upon a foot of brickdust, tend to make you gird at Life. Incidentally, is this fast enough for you? Or are your livers still sluggish?" "I think," said I, nodding at a huge pantechnicon, "that we might pass the furniture." I know no horn whose note is at once so compelling and offensive as that of the usher with which Pong was equipped. I know no din at once so obliterative and brain-shaking as that induced by the passage of a French pantechnicon, towed at a high speed over an abominable road. That the driver of the tractor failed to hear our demand was not remarkable. That he should have elected to sway uncertainly along the very crown of the road was most exasperating.... Three times did Berry essay to push by; three times at the critical moment did the tractor lurch drunkenly across our bows; and three times did Pong fall back discomfited. The dust, the reek, the vibration, the pandemonium, were combining to create an atmosphere worthy of a place in the Litany. One's senses were cuffed and buffeted almost to a standstill. I remember vaguely that Daphne was clinging to my arm, wailing that "it was no good." I know I was shouting. Berry was howling abusive incoherence in execrable French.... We were approaching the top of a hill.. Suddenly the tractor swung away to its right. With a yell of triumph, my unwitting brother-in-law thrust at the gap.... Pong leapt forward. Mercifully there was a lane on the left, and I seized the wheel and wrenched it round, at the same time opening the throttle as wide as I dared. I fancy we took the corner on two wheels. As we did so, a pale blue racer streaked by our tail-lamp with the roar of an avalanche. When Daphne announced that, if she reached Biarritz alive, she should drive home with Jonah, I was hardly surprised. It was perhaps an hour later that, after passing grey-headed Bayonne, we came to her smart little sister and the villa we sought.