They were come west in their tramping--set in that quarter by the motor-car that had run them from that early adventure with the nightshirted and the corduroyed gentlemen. It had alighted them in Wiltshire, and they continued, while splendid summer in imperial days and pageant nights attended them, by easy and haphazard stages down into Dorset and thence through Somerset and Devon into Cornwall by the sea. Many amazements in these counties and in these months--some of a train with those afforded by the liver-cutting wagoner and by the yellow-toothed farmer bent upon arson; some quieter, but to Mr. Wriford, if he permitted thought, not less amazing--as when he found himself working with his hands and in his sweat for manual wages; some in outrage of law and morals that had shocked the Mr. Wriford of the London days. He must be doing something, as he had told Mr. Puddlebox, and doing something all the time. What he did not tell was that these things--when they were wild, irresponsible, grotesque, wrong, immoral---were done by conscious effort before they were entered upon. Mr. Wriford used to--had to--dare himself to do them. "Now, here you are!" Mr. Wriford would say to himself when by freakish thought some opportunity offered itself. "Here you are! Ah, you funk it! I knew you would. I thought so. You funk it!" And then, thus taunted, would come the sudden burst of fierceness or of irresponsible prankishness, and Mr. Wriford would rush at the thing fiercely, and fiercely begin it, and with increasing fierceness carry it to settlement--one way or the other. Once, up from a roadside to a labourer who came sturdily by, "I'll fight you for tuppence!" cried Mr. Wriford, facing him. "Ba goom, I'll faight thee for nowt!" said the man and knocked him down, and when again he rushed, furious and bleeding, smashed him again, and laughing at the ease of it, trod on his way. "Well, why to the devil did you do such a mad thing?" said Mr. Puddlebox, awakened from a doze and tending Mr. Wriford's hurts. "Where to the devil is the sense of such a thing?" "I thought of it as he came along," said Mr. Wriford, "and I had to do it." "Why, curse me," cried Mr. Puddlebox, "I mustn't even sleep for your madness, boy." "Well, I've done it," Mr. Wriford returned, much hurt but fiercely glad. "I've done it, and I'm happy. If I hadn't--oh, you wouldn't understand. That's enough. Let it bleed. Let the damned thing bleed. I like to see it."