After much mild opposition on my part, we consented to join the Farrars in a motor trip to Winfield. I did not want to go, for several reasons. I like my hearth; I like my habits; I dislike motor-cars; I dislike strange inn beds. I was not prepared for four or five days' racing through this green England in company so limited in imagination. But when I found that Farrar and his wife always sat in front, I relented a little, for it would mean that Naomi and I had the inside wholly to ourselves. I hazarded the stipulation that we should make it a rule on desirable occasions to offer lifts on the road; but Farrar asked me not to press it. It would not work, he said. And I now agree with him, for, as a matter of fact, you can't do things like that in a motor. Motors refuse to stop quickly enough. There can be only one mind in a motor, and that is the driver's, and the driver's is stunned or dulled by his office. Hence, just as one always overshoots the prettiest cottages and gardens and the most beautiful by-roads, so one has long passed the unhappy footsore pedestrian before the impulse to pick him up can be communicated to the man at the wheel; and of course in a motor there is no going back. As a matter of fact, we did chance to assist one man in this way, but he came up to us when we were stopping for a sandwich on the roadside. That is to say, he overtook us and caught us off our guard: a tall lean man with a stubble on his chin and an air still slightly rakish in spite of travel-stains and weariness. He asked how far it was to Birmingham, and told us that he was an actor and had heard of a travelling company with whom, before a long illness, he had been associated, and he was walking to Birmingham hoping it might find room for him. Gwendolen came inside and the histrion (as I am sure he would love best to be called) rode beside Farrar in silence. But when he said good-bye he wrung my hand under the impression that I was the owner of the car, and drew me aside to mention the fact that the loan of half a crown for two days would be an incalculable boon. Poor fellow, he looked so fragile and empty that I made the sum a good deal larger, and pressed him not to be so hasty in returning it; and he promised he would not. "I could wish sometimes," he said brokenly, with his hat in his hand, as we parted, "that the Great Prompter would ring down the curtain!" "Hullo!" said Farrar, as I rejoined them, "been biting your ear, eh? That's what always comes of this lift business. How much did he bite it for?" "Only half a crown," I said, and spent the next hour wondering why it is that one is so terrified of letting a man of the world think one a human being.