Nor, at the discovery that a nephew whom he had supposed to be twenty miles away was standing at his elbow, did anything in the nature of sudden joy help to fill him with sweetness and light. "How the devil did you get here?" were his opening words of welcome. His scarlet face vanished for an instant into the folds of a large handkerchief; then reappeared, wearing a look of acute concern. "You didn't," he quavered, "come in the Dex-Mayo?" A thought to shake the sturdiest man. It was twenty miles from Rudge Hall to Healthward Ho, and twenty miles back again from Healthward Ho to Rudge Hall. The Dex-Mayo, that voracious car, consumed a gallon of petrol for every ten miles it covered. And for a gallon of petrol they extorted from you nowadays the hideous sum of one shilling and sixpence halfpenny. Forty miles, accordingly, meant--not including oil, wear and tear of engines, and depreciation of tires--a loss to his purse of over six shillings--a heavy price to pay for the society of a nephew whom he had disliked since boyhood. "No, no," said Hugo hastily. "I borrowed John's two-seater," "Oh," said Mr. Carmody, relieved. There was a pause, employed by Mr. Carmody in puffing; by Hugo in trying to think of something to say that would be soothing, tactful, ingratiating, and calculated to bring home the bacon. He turned over in his mind one or two conversational gambits. ("Well, Uncle, you look very rosy." Not quite right. "I say, Uncle what ho the School-Girl Complexion?" Absolutely _no_! The wrong tone altogether. Ah! That was more like it. "Fit." Yes, that was the word.) "You look very fit, Uncle," said Hugo. Mr. Carmody's reply to this was to make a noise like a buffalo pulling its foot out of a swamp. It might have been intended to be genial, or it might not. Hugo could not tell. However, he was a reasonable young man, and he quite understood that it would be foolish to expect the milk of human kindness instantly to come gushing like a geyser out of a two-hundred-and-twenty-pound uncle who had just been doing bending and stretching exercises. He must be patient and suave--the Sympathetic Nephew. "I expect it's been pretty tough going, though," he proceeded. "I mean to say, all these exercises and cold showers and lean chops and so forth. Terribly trying. Very upsetting. A great ordeal. I think it's wonderful the way you've stuck it out. Simply wonderful. It's Character that does it. That's what it is. Character. Many men would have chucked the whole thing up in the first two days." "So would I," said Mr. Carmody, "only that damned doctor made me give him a cheque in advance for the whole course." Hugo felt damped. He had had some good things to say about Character, and it seemed little use producing them now.