The next instant they were anchored against the roots of a lamp-post. When Ellis saw the upper half of the lamp-post bent down at right angles, and pieces of glass covering the pavement, he could not believe that he and his dogcart had done that, especially as neither the mare, nor the dogcart, nor its freight, was damaged. The machine was merely jammed, and the mare, satisfied, stood quiet, breathing rapidly. But Ada Jenkins was crying. And the car stopped a moment to observe. And then a number of chapel-goers on their way to the Sytch Chapel, which the Carter family still faithfully attended, joined the scene; and then a policeman. Ellis sat like a stuck pig in the dogcart. He knew that speech was demanded of him, but he did not know where to begin. The worst thing of all was the lamp-post, bent, moveless, unnatural, atrociously comic, accusing him. The affair was over the town in a minute; the next morning it reached Llandudno. Ellis Carter had been out on the spree with _a Wakes girl_ in a dogcart on Sunday afternoon, and had got into such a condition that he had driven into a lamp-post at the top of Oldcastle Street just as people were going into chapel. The lamp-post remained bent for three days--a fearful warning to all dogs that doggishness has limits. If it had not been a dogcart, and such a high, green dogcart; if it had been, say, a brougham, or even a cab! If it had not been Sunday! And, granting Sunday, if it had not been just as people were going into chapel! If he had not chosen that particular lamp-post, visible both from the market-place and St. Luke's Square! If he had only contrived to destroy a less obtrusive lamp-post in some unfrequented street! And if it had not been a Wakes girl--if the reprobate had only selected for his guilty amours an actress from one of the touring companies, or even a star from the Hanbridge Empire--yea, or even a local barmaid! But _a Wakes girl_! Ellis himself saw the enormity of his transgression. He lay awake astounded by his own doggishness. And yet he had seldom felt less doggy than during that trip. It seemed to him that doggishness was not the glorious thing he had thought. However, he cut a heroic figure at the dogs' club. Every admiring face said: 'Well, you _have_ been going the pace! We always knew you were a hot un, but, really----' V On the following Friday evening, when Ellis jumped off the car opposite his home on the Hawkins, he saw in the road, halted, a train of vast and queer-shaped waggons in charge of two traction-engines. They were painted on all sides with the great name of Jenkins. They contained Jenkins's roundabouts and shooting-saloons, on their way to rouse the joy of life in other towns. And he perceived in front of the portico the high, green dogcart and the lamp-post-destroying mare.