Anyhow, whichever way the calculation was made, it was going to be a breathless neck-and-neck affair, with every minute rated at inestimable value. And, having got every item in the programme weighed up and docketed in his brain, Carn wasted no time wailing and gnashing his teeth against the cussedness of a Fate that had tossed him such a fine, big, juicy plum that day, for all the accompanying hail of thistles and cactus. Once he knew where all the thorns were, and had tested their precise degree of spikiness, he grabbed up his hat and stick and set out to blunt as many of them as possible. He went down to the village as quickly as he could without seeming unduly flurried to any of the Tiger’s Cubs who might catch a glimpse of him, and on the way through he stopped at the inn. “I’ve just had a letter from an old patient of mine,” he explained. “An Ilfracombe man—he’s had a heart attack. I’ve been his doctor for years, and he wants me to attend to him now. It’s a beastly nuisance, but I feel bound to go. Can you let me have the car?” It was a plausible lie, for a boy cycled over from Ilfracombe with the post every morning, and did not arrive until lunch time. “I’m sorry, sir,” replied the publican, and Carn’s heart did a back-somersault and flopped sickeningly against his diaphragm—“two of the men from Sir John’s came down and hired the car early this morning to go into Ilfracombe for their day off.” “Damn the gentlemen,” said Carn, but he said it to himself, and he did not call them gentlemen. Aloud he said, with only a moderate display of annoyance: “I ought to try and get over somehow—my patient’s in a bad way, and they’re expecting me. I suppose these fellows won’t be back till late?” “They didn’t say, sir, but I’m not expecting them till the evening.” “Hasn’t Horrick got a trap?” Horrick was the nearest farmer, about half a mile out of the village, and the innkeeper opined that Horrick had something of the sort. “I wonder if you could send a boy over to find out if he’d lend it to me?” suggested Carn. The innkeeper cogitated at length, in the leisured manner of country people, while Carn masked his impatience as best he could. At last the man decided that it would be possible. “Perhaps you’ll join me in a glass of beer, sir?” he invited, after making this momentous resolution. “If I could see the boy now, he could be getting on his way while we down a quick one,” Carn mooted gently. The publican sighed. The fidgetiness of city-bred people offended his placid spirit. Nevertheless, he shouted “Boy!” and after a decent interval, during which he embarked on a voluminous discussion of the weather and its influence on fish, a diminutive urchin answered his summons. The urchin was instructed in the vernacular, but Carn was moved to add an exhortation in another language.