A walk of a hundred yards or two along a bank, covered sparsely with harsh and wiry grass, and dividing two fields, both equally poverty-stricken, brought me to the crumbling edge of a sandy cliff, not high enough to impose by its grandeur, not rugged enough to please by its outline. Below was a beach of sand, beyond that the smooth, grey, hazy sea with not a vessel of any kind visible on its sluggish surface. To the westward was Runton, a conglomeration of commonplace brick houses, glaringly new, obviously intended for lodgings. A windmill and its house were the only buildings in any way calculated to give satisfaction to the eye. From there it roved on to undulating hills, probably of sand, as indeed was everything else except the raw houses of Runton. Rambling, in this Poppy Land _sans_ poppies, seemed weary, flat, stale and unprofitable. A return to the car revealed Mr. Johnson still in the back position, as riflemen say, and sundry stray bits of the car and tools lying on the road by his side. A glance at him, obtained by crouching, showed him to be much hotter, much dirtier than before, more smilingly determined than ever, if possible, to make nothing of his personal trouble. He was not so much a good man fighting against adversity as a master of science wrestling with a problem he knew that he could solve in time: and solve it with triumph he did. A few minutes more and he half wriggled half rolled into the open road, dusty, but jubilant, holding a little piece of pipe some five inches long and of infinitesimal bore in his hand. "Here is the little brute," he said, with a gentle smile--and then made his one mistake of the day, and it cost him dear. Just touching one end of the pipe with his lips, and holding his hollowed palm by the other end, he blew one breath. Out came the obstruction, hardly bigger than a snapdragon seed, surely the tiniest little imp of a particle that ever hampered the circulation of a mighty machine. The mechanical trouble was over for ever, or at any rate for that expedition. A very few minutes sufficed to prepare the car for the road again, and she accomplished over two hundred miles more that day without, so to speak, turning a hair. So did the man who cured her, because he knew her complaint to a nicety; but he was in my company all that day until seven or eight in the evening and the thoroughly abominable taste of petrol was in his mouth to the end. In fact You may rinse with raw brandy your mouth if you will, But the reek of the petrol will cling to it still.