"I came to see if you were still in want of a chauffeur, sir," he said in reply to the captain's interrogation. "I have been employed at the Gresley works." "I do want a chauffeur" replied the warrior on the hearthrug; "but how am I to know that you will do, my man?" "If you care to go and put any part of the machinery out of order, I will undertake to put it right again; and after that I could take you for a run in the car." This sounded direct and business-like, and pleased the captain, and, incidentally, the captain's daughter. "Well, that's fair enough. Go and have something to eat now, and after that you can take Miss Lottingar and myself for a spin. By the way, what's your name?" "John Armstrong--sir!" said Pip. (He was always forgetting that word.) "Have you any references?" "No." "Could you get any?" "I might, but I'd rather not." The captain regarded this blunt young man curiously. He possessed no references himself, and he moved in a class of society where such things were regarded with pious horror. Pip rather attracted him. "Never mind them at present," he said, ringing the bell. "If you can handle the car you will suit me. If you can't, you are worth nothing, and you'll get nothing. Would you be willing to do odd jobs as well?" "Certainly." The butler appeared. "Howard," said the captain, "take this man and give him something to eat in the steward's room, and let me see him again at three o'clock." Mr. Howard, looking particularly benevolent, led Pip away, and Captain Lottingar was left alone with his daughter. "He'll do, Lottie, I think," he said carelessly. "M' yes--he'll do," said Lottie. Her father turned round. "You don't seem quite sure. What is it?" "Nothing. I'm sure enough. Take him." So the bargain was concluded, and Pip found himself engaged as chauffeur to Captain Cuthbert Lottingar (regiment unknown), of Broadoak Manor, Great Stileborough, Herts. But Lottie was not sure. She had observed one fact which had escaped her usually astute parent, and that was that the new chauffeur was a gentleman--and, as such, a suspicious character. An ordinary mechanical mechanic would have been harmless; but a gentleman was a superfluity, and therefore a source of danger. But Lottie hesitated to comment on the fact. Wisdom said, "Take no risks"; feminine curiosity said, "Chance it!" Lottie chanced it, not for the first time in the history of womankind. II