"No!" Tietjens answered: "I'll get you fifty for it or I'm no Yorkshireman. This fellow hasn't been swindling you. He's got you deuced good value for money, but he doesn't know what's suited for ladies; a white pony and a basket-work chaise is what you want." "Oh, I like a bit of spirit," Mrs. Wannop said. "Of course you do," Tietjens answered: "but this turn-out's too much." He sighed a little and took out his surgical needle. "I'm going to hold this band together with this," he said. "It's so pliant it will make two stitches and hold for ever. . . ." But the handy man was beside him, holding out the contents of his pockets: a greasy leather pouch, a ball of beeswax, a knife, a pipe, a bit of cheese and a pale rabbit wire. He had made up his mind that _this_ Quality was benevolent and he made offering of all his possessions. Tietjens said: "Ah," and then, while he unknotted the wire: "Well! Listen . . . you bought this turn-out of a higgler at the back door of the Leg of Mutton Inn." "Saracen's 'Ed!" the driver muttered. "You got it for thirty pounds because the higgler wanted money bad. _I_ know. And dirt cheap. . . . But a rig isn't everybody's driving. All right for a vet or a horse-coper. Like the cart that's too tall! . . . But you did damn well. Only you're not what you were, are you, at thirty? And the horse looked to be a devil and the cart so high you couldn't get out once you were in. And you kept it in the sun for two hours waiting for your mistress." "There wer' a bit o' lewth 'longside stable wall," the driver muttered. "Well! He didn't like waiting," Tietjens said placably. "You can be thankful your old neck's not broken. Do this band up, one hole less for the bit I've taken in." He prepared to climb into the driver's seat, but Mrs. Wannop was there before him, at an improbable altitude on the sloping watch-box with strapped cushions. "Oh, no, you don't," she said, "no one drives me and my horse but me or my coachman when I'm about. Not even you, dear boy." "I'll come with you then," Tietjens said. "Oh, no, you don't," she answered. "No one's neck's to be broken in this conveyance but mine and Joel's," she added: "perhaps to-night if I'm satisfied the horse is fit to drive." Miss Wannop suddenly exclaimed: "Oh, _no_, mother." But the handy man having climbed in, Mrs. Wannop flirted her whip and started the horse. She pulled up at once and leaned over to Tietjens: "_What_ a life for that poor woman," she said. "We must _all_ do all we can for her. She could have her husband put in a lunatic asylum to-morrow. It's sheer self-sacrifice that she doesn't." The horse went off at a gentle, regular trot. Tietjens addressed Miss Wannop: "What hands your mother's got," he said, "it isn't often one sees a woman with hands like that on a horse's mouth. . . . Did you see how she pulled up? . . ."