Three times a week it was Mr. Ffrench's stately custom to visit the factory and inspect it with Bailey. At other times Bailey came up to the house, where affairs were conducted. But in neither place did Mr. Ffrench ever come in contact with his manager, during all the months while winter waxed and waned again to spring. "That's Bailey's doing," chuckled Dick, when Emily finally wondered aloud at the circumstance. "He isn't going to risk losing Lestrange because our high and mighty uncle falls out with him. And it would be pretty likely to happen if they met. Lestrange has a temper, you know, even if it doesn't stick out all over him like a hedgehog; and a dozen other companies would give money to get him." Emily nodded gravely. It was a sunny morning in the first of March, and the cousins were at the end of the old park surrounding Ffrenchwood, where they had strolled before breakfast. "Mr. Bailey likes Mr. Lestrange," she commented. "Likes him! He loves him. You know Lestrange lives with him; a bachelor household, cozy as grigs." Just past here ran the road, beyond a high cedar hedge. While he was speaking, the irregular explosive reports of a motor had sounded down the valley, unmistakable to those familiar with the testing of the stripped cars, and rapidly approaching. Now, as Emily would have answered, the roar suddenly changed in character, an appalling series of explosions mingled with the grind of outraged machinery suddenly braked, and some one shouted above the din. The next instant a huge mass shot past the other side of the hedge and there followed a dull crash. "That's one of our men!" gasped Dick, and plunged headlong through the shrubbery. Dazed momentarily, Emily stood, then caught up her skirts and ran after him. She knew well enough what the testers of the cars risked. "Dick!" she appealed. "Dick!" But it was not the wreck she anticipated that met her eyes as she came through the hedge. On the opposite side of the road a long low skeleton car was standing, one side lurched drunkenly down with two wheels in the gutter. Still in his seat, the driver was leaning over the steering-wheel, out of breath, but laughing a greeting to the astonished Dick. "A break in the steering-gear," he declared, by way of explanation. "I told Bailey it was a weak point; now perhaps he'll believe me and strengthen it." "You're not hurt," Dick inferred. "I think she's not--a tire gone. Find anything wrong, Rupert?" "Two tires off," said the laconic mechanician. "Two funerals postponed. That was a pretty stop, Darling." "Very," coolly agreed Lestrange, rising and removing his goggles. "What's the matter, Ffrench?" "You frightened us out of our five senses, that's all. Do you usually practise for races out here?" "_Us?_" repeated Lestrange, and turning, saw the girl at the edge of the park. "Miss Ffrench, I beg your pardon!"