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“Here!” said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. “Come here and show me the lead of this pipe.” And the engineer lay down beside him.

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. “But she’s more of a bag of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft”–he pointed to the back seat–“and I’ll have a look at the forced draught.”

The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he had a brother an artificer in the Navy.

“They couple very well, those two,” said Pyecroft critically, while Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay jets of steam.

“Now take me up the road,” he said. My man, for form’s sake, looked at me.

“Yes, take him,” I said. “He’s all right.”

“No, I’m not,” said Hinchcliffe of a sudden–“not if I’m expected to judge my water out of a little shaving-glass.”

The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.

“Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how you steer while you’re doing it, or you’ll get ditched!” I cried, as the car ran down the road.

“I wonder!” said Pyecroft, musing. “But, after all, it’s your steamin’ gadgets he’s usin’ for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me after breakfast only this mornin’ ‘ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours, that he wouldn’t see nor smell nor thumb a runnin’ bulgine till the nineteenth prox. Now look at him Only look at ‘im!”

We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his seat to Hinchcliffe, while the car flickered generously from hedge to hedge.

“What happens if he upsets?”

“The petrol will light up and the boiler may blow up.”

“How rambunkshus! And”–Pyecroft blew a slow cloud–“Agg’s about three hoops up this mornin’, too.”

“What’s that to do with us? He’s gone down the road,” I retorted.

“Ye–es, but we’ll overtake him. He’s a vindictive carrier. He and Hinch ‘ad words about pig-breeding this morning. O’ course, Hinch don’t know the elements o’ that evolution; but he fell back on ‘is naval rank an’ office, an’ Agg grew peevish. I wasn’t sorry to get out of the cart … Have you ever considered how, when you an’ I meet, so to say, there’s nearly always a remarkable hectic day ahead of us! Hullo! Behold the beef-boat returnin’!”

He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted: “In bow! Way ’nuff!”

“You be quiet!” cried Hinchcliffe, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark face shining with joy. “She’s the Poetry o’ Motion! She’s the Angel’s Dream. She’s——” He shut off steam, and the slope being against her, the car slid soberly downhill again.

“What’s this? I’ve got the brake on!” he yelled.

“It doesn’t hold backwards,” I said. “Put her on the mid-link.”

“That’s a nasty one for the chief engineer o’ the Djinn, 31-knot, T.B.D.,” said Pyecroft. “Do you know what the mid-link is, Hinch?”

Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the rug, Hinchcliffe jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she retired backwards into her own steam.

“Apparently ‘e don’t,” said Pyecroft. “What’s he done now, Sir?”

“Reversed her. I’ve done it myself.”

“But he’s an engineer.”

For the third time the car manoeuvred up the hill.

“I’ll teach you to come alongside properly, if I keep you ‘tiffies out all night!” shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliffe’s face grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the car buzzed twenty yards uphill.

“That’s enough. We’ll take your word for it. The mountain will go to Ma’ommed. Stand fast!”

Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliffe fumed together.

“Not as easy as it looks–eh, Hinch?”

“It is dead easy. I’m going to drive her to Instead Wick–aren’t I?” said the first-class engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a small privilege to accord to pure genius.