It was an uncommonly queer situation for a perfectly innocent man, week-ending at a country house. I should have been ashamed to face the critics if I had made so improbable a situation the crux of a play. But the improbability of life constantly outruns the mechanical inventions of the playwright and the novelist. Where life, with all its extravagances, fails, is in its refusal to provide the apt and timely coincidence that shall solve the problem of the hero. As I walked on slowly towards Jervaise Clump, I had little hope of finding the peculiarly appropriate vehicle that would convey me to Hurley Junction; and I did not relish the thought of that fifteen mile walk, without a hat. I kept to the road, skirting the pudding basin hill, and came presently to the fence of the Park and to what was evidently a side gate--not an imposing wrought-iron erection between stone pillars such as that which announced the front entrance, but just a rather high-class six-barred gate. I hesitated a minute or two, with the feelings of one who leaves the safety of the home enclosure for the unknown perils of the wild, and then with a sigh of resignation walked boldly out on to the high road. I had no notion in which direction Hurley Junction lay, but luck was with me, so far. There was a fourth road, opposite the Park gate, and a sign-post stood at the junction of what may once have been the main cross-roads--before some old Jervaise land-robber pushed the park out on this side until he was stopped by the King's highway. On the sign-post I read the indication that Hurley Junction was distant 14-1/2 miles, and that my direction was towards the north; but I felt a marked disinclination to begin my walk. It was very hot, and the flies were a horrible nuisance. I stood under the shadow of the hedge, flapped a petulant handkerchief at the detestably annoying flies, and stared down the road towards the far, invisible distances of Hurley. No one was in sight. The whole country was plunged in the deep slumber of a Sunday afternoon, and I began to feel uncommonly sleepy myself. I had, after all, only slept for a couple of hours or so that morning. I yawned wearily and my thoughts ran to the refrain of "fourteen and a half miles; fourteen and a half miles to Hurley Junction."