She said: "Here." He caught a round ball of whitish, stuff. He undid it. Thank God: what sense! A long, strong, white band. . . . What the devil was the hissing. . . . A small, closed car with crumpled mud-guards: noiseless nearly: gleaming black . . . God curse it: it passed them: stopped ten yards down . . . the horse rearing back: mad! Clean mad . . . something like a scarlet and white cockatoo, fluttering out of the small car door . . . a general. In full tog. White feathers! Ninety medals! Scarlet coat! Black trousers with red stripe. Spurs too, by God! Tietjens said: "God damn you, you bloody swine. Go away!" The apparition, past the horse's blinkers, said: "I can, at least, hold the horse for you. I went past to get you out of Claudine's sight." "Damn good-natured of you," Tietjens said as rudely as he could. "You'll have to pay for the horse." The General exclaimed: "Damn it all! Why should I? You were driving your beastly camel right into my drive." "You never sounded your horn," Tietjens said. "I was on private ground," the General shouted. "Besides I did." An enraged, scarlet scarecrow, very thin, he was holding the horse's bridle. Tietjens was extending the half petticoat, with a measuring eye, before the horse's chest. The General said: "Look here! I've got to take the escort for the Royal party at St. Peter-in-Manor, Dover. They're laying the Buff's colours on the altar or something." "You never sounded your horn," Tietjens said. "Why didn't you bring your chauffeur? He's a capable man. . . . You talk very big about the widow and child. But when it comes to robbing them of fifty quid by slaughtering their horse . . ." The General said: "What the devil were you doing coming into our drive at five in the morning?" Tietjens, who had applied the half petticoat to the horse's chest, exclaimed: "Pick up that thing and give it me." A thin roll of linen was at his feet: it had rolled down from the hedge. "Can I leave the horse?" the General asked. "Of course you can," Tietjens said. "If I can't quiet a horse better than you can run a car . . ." He bound the new linen strips over the petticoat: the horse dropped its head, smelling his hand. The General, behind Tietjens, stood back on his heels, grasping his gold-mounted sword. Tietjens went on twisting and twisting the bandage. "Look here," the General suddenly bent forward to whisper into Tietjens' ear, "what am I to tell Claudine? I believe she saw the girl." "Oh, tell her we came to ask what time you cast off your beastly otter hounds," Tietjens said; "that's a matutinal job. . . ." The General's voice had a really pathetic intonation: "On a Sunday!" he exclaimed. Then in a tone of relief he added: "I shall tell her you were going to early communion in Duchemin's church at Pett." "If you want to add blasphemy to horse-slaughtering as a profession, do," Tietjens said. "But you'll have to pay for the horse."