The meal was again served in the hall. Richard wondered at its promptness in this happy-go-lucky household, but when he saw the face of the stern old woman named Bridget he ceased to wonder. Bridget was evidently a continual fount of order and exactitude. Whatever others did or failed to do, she could be relied upon to keep time. Mr. Raphael Craig came out of the room into which he had vanished six hours earlier. He kissed Teresa, and shook Richard’s hand with equal gravity. In the morning light his massive head looked positively noble, Richard thought. The bank manager had the air of a great poet or a great scientist. He seemed wrapped up in his own deep meditations on the universe. Yet he ate a noticeably healthy breakfast. Richard counted both the rashers and the eggs consumed by Raphael Craig. ‘How do you go to town, dad?’ asked Teresa. ‘Remember, to-day is Saturday.’ ‘I shall go down on the Panhard. You smashed the other last night, and I don’t care to experiment with our new purchase this morning.’ ‘No, you won’t go down on the Panhard,’ Richard said to himself; ‘I’ve seen to that.’ ‘Perhaps I may have the pleasure of taking Mr. Redgrave with me?’ the old man added. ‘I shall be delighted,’ said Richard. ‘Do you object to fast travelling?’ asked Mr. Craig. ‘We start in a quarter of an hour, and shall reach Kilburn before nine-thirty.’ ‘The faster the better,’ Richard agreed. ‘If you please, sir, something’s gone wrong with the brake of the Panhard. The thread of one of the screws is worn.’ The voice was the voice of Micky, whose head had unceremoniously inserted itself at the front-door. A shadow crossed the fine face of Raphael Craig. ‘Something gone wrong?’ he questioned severely. ‘Sure, your honour. Perhaps the expert gentleman can mend it,’ Mike replied. Again Richard detected a note of irony in the Irishman’s voice. The whole party went out to inspect the Panhard. Richard, in his assumed rôle of expert, naturally took a prominent position. In handling the damaged screw he contrived to drop it accidentally down a grid in the stone floor. ‘Never mind,’ said Raphael Craig, with a sharp gesture of annoyance. ‘I will drive to Leighton Buzzard and catch the eight-ten. It is now seven-thirty. Harness Hetty instantly, Mick.’ ‘That I will, sorr.’ ‘Let me suggest,’ Richard interposed, ‘that I take you to Leighton on the new car. I can then explain the working of it to you, and return here, retrieve the screw which I have so clumsily lost, and put the Panhard to rights, and possibly mend the other one.’ ‘Oh yes, dad,’ said Teresa, ‘that will be splendid, and I will go with you to Leighton and drive the car back under Mr. Redgrave’s instructions.’