"'Tis a pity," I said, "that so many workers in London take bread and cheese with tea and coffee, for there is no staying power in such a mixture." "It can't be good," he shouted. "It can't be healthy." The farmer's name was Mr Weekes--the same as it was painted on the wagon outside--and he said that he would be very glad to take me with my machine into Tisbury, where there was a motor garage. He made an extraordinarily shrill noise with his mouth and a fine greyhound that had been sleeping beneath the table bounded up. "This long-dog," said Mr Weekes, "is a wonderfully good dog--the best dog of his kind in the world." Mr Weekes is never half-hearted about things. His enthusiasm is prodigious. He is like a human hurricane when he launches upon any of his pet subjects. At once he fell to explaining the points and final perfection of a perfect greyhound. I remember a quaint rhyme he quoted, which is perhaps worth repetition here: "The shape of a good greyhound is:-- A head like a snake, a neck like a drake; A back like a beam, a belly like a bream; A foot like a cat, a tail like a rat." The farmer, then, I say, was not the kind of man to qualify any of his remarks, and he reasserted his claim that, in the concrete, in the existent state of things, his dog was the best that breathed. [Illustration: THE GREEN DRAGON AT BARFORD ST MARTIN IN 1860 This inn is one of the few remaining places in England where the landlord brews his own ale The adjoining barns have been regularly used for brewing since 1750] This he said for the sixth time, drank up his stout, and after helping me to lift my machine into the wagon, climbed up on to his seat, I by his side. He then flicked his horses gently with his whip and they began to amble along with the wagon. On the way to Tisbury the farmer talked with the greatest friendliness, and when we arrived at his farm he insisted on bringing me in to supper. He showed me his orchard, barns and a very fine apple-tree of which he was enormously proud, and pulled me an armful of the finest apples he could find. "Take these apples home," he said, watching me with his merry eyes; "they make the best apple pies in the world." An armful of apples of prodigious size is not exactly the kind of thing one welcomes with a broken-down motor cycle two hundred miles from home, but I dared not refuse them, and so I stuffed them into all my pockets. Finally my good friend insisted on keeping me under his roof for the night. After my machine had been repaired next morning I went on my way, thinking what a fine, merry, hospitable fellow the Dorset yeoman is--if you only approach him with a little caution. * * * * *