The curate tried to be rude in his turn, but he was not so good at it as the more experienced man. "Such a place to choose!" he continued, turning to Colonel Lewknor. "Opposite the church-door! Just like him!" "Such a place, indeed!" echoed the Colonel, quiet and courteous. "What's the good of lying down to die of starvation at the door of the _Church_ of all places? Will she open to you?" Mr. Pigott disliked the Reverend Spink almost as much as he disliked the curate's protégé. Next day the contrary man sent for Ernie and offered him a job as lorry-man in the Transport Company. "I know you and you know me," he said in his most aggressive manner. "So it's no good telling a pack o lies to each other that I can see. Start at twenty-three a week, with chances of a rise if you keep at it steady. Begin Monday.... And it's your last chance, mind!" Ernie ignored the insults and leapt at the offer. The Southdown Transport Company ran motor-lorries between Newhaven and Beachbourne, carrying seaborne coal and other merchandise from the harbour on the Ouse to the town under Beau-nez. Ernie liked the work. It kept him out of doors, under the sky, and in touch with the old-world elemental things he loved. The breath and bustle of the harbour at Newhaven; the long ride on the motor-lorry through the hill-country at all seasons of the year; even the pleasant acrid smell of the coal and coke in the lorry and on his overalls was pleasant and satisfying to him. He worked steadily, paid his debts, and for the first time in his life began gradually to save money. That autumn his father asked him if he wouldn't return home to live. "Alfred's left us," said the old man. "Has he?" asked Ernie surprised. "Where's he gone then?" "He's gone to live above his garage," replied the other. "Something's happening to Alfred," he added. "I don't know what." Alf, in fact, was changing; and Mr. Trupp was watching the evolution of his chauffeur with a detached scientific interest that his wife defined as inhuman. And that evolution was proceeding apace. Alf was living alone above his garage; he had introduced a girl into his office; and he was no longer getting on. Mr. Trupp noted the last as far the most significant symptom of the three. Alf had climbed in his career to a certain point, and there he stuck fast. His business neither went ahead nor back. He was still doing well and saving money. The wonder was that he was not doing better. But the reason was clear enough to the penetrating eye of the old surgeon, to whom his chauffeur was an absorbing study in mental pathology: Alf was no more a man of one idea; his energies were no longer concentrated solely on getting on to the exclusion of all else. The emotional side of him, battered down from infancy, was revenging itself at last. Desperately it was seeking an outlet, no matter how perverted: certainly it would find one.