Up to this time in the narrative, although at no period was any superstitious regard paid to the speed limit, I had not been caught in a police ambuscade (not that "ambuscade," except for its length, is a word in the least degree more dignified than "trap") during my travels in East Anglia; nor need I hesitate to write thus, for, in the first place, I am touching wood in the shape of a cork penholder, and, in the next, the narrative being but part accomplished, the travelling days which were its preliminary are, as the hymn says, o'er. In the journeys by motor-car from Colchester, which have been pressed into service during the preceding chapter, I was exempt from the speed limit. Again, so far as the narrative has gone, I can lay my hand on my heart and say that never, save once during the Essex manoeuvres, through a burst tire, and then not in the Lanchester car, did I meet with tire trouble or suffer an involuntary stop through any failing of machinery. On the expedition now to be recorded, in itself one of the most interesting and delightful ever taken by me, we had a whole series of troubles of different kinds--misfortunes of this kind never occur singly. But I hope to be able to show that these troubles were, some of them, providential, in other ways than that of supplying me with topics, which were abundant in any case, and that skill of hand and knowledge, combined with perfect imperturbability of temper in a gentleman who drives, and has all the trouble on his own hands, may convert trouble into sheer pleasure for the other persons delayed on the road. Early in the morning of 6 April, a sunny morning worthy of the spring, Mr. Claude Johnson arrived at my Berkshire cottage with the Rolls-Royce owning the _sobriquet_ of the Grey Ghost. I had ridden in the car first in Paris, outside the _salon_ during the exhibition of 1904, and had been fascinated by its silence and controllability as Mr. Rolls at the wheel threaded the traffic in the Champs Élysées. Mr. Johnson had been expected overnight; the chamber in the wall had been prepared; but "he came not, for the ships were broken in Ezion-Geber." In other words, the back near tire came to grief on the Oxford Road. Taking it off with his own hands and substituting another, he had elected to sleep at a favourite inn and to come on to my house in the morning. This particular burst was simply the act of giving up the ghost accomplished by canvas which had reached the end of its natural life; and this, since the term of the natural life of canvas varies, is the kind of mishap which may occur at any time. Knowing that the tendency of troubles to come in groups is not mere matter of proverbial superstition, or, perhaps, being not entirely free from superstition, Mr. Johnson said, "You must be prepared for plenty more of these pleasant little interruptions. But, however, I have wired for a mechanic to meet us at Aylesbury, with more inner tubes and covers, and with luck we may last till then."