"Now, let's have no more nonsense about Adams," he said. "I admit he had a wife and four children, but you can hardly hold me responsible for that. Moreover, he was a yahoo. He decorated the interior of the garage--my garage--with chromolithographs, and his wife kept wax fruit under a glass case in her parlour window. I have dismissed him, and there is an end of it. Let us cease to be sentimental or maudlin upon the subject."
"You might have given him a character," said the girl.
"If I had," replied her father grimly, "he would never have obtained a situation again."
"Don't you think," she said, "that if we are really going to call on the Easts, we had better be getting on? And go gently. The foot-brake is a good deal worn, and the side-brake won't hold this heavy car if it gets on the run down this hill."
"If there is one thing," replied her amiable papa, "about this miserable and untrustworthy vehicle which can be relied upon at all, it is the efficiency of the brakes."
Meanwhile Philip, a little startled at the reception accorded to his tacit offer of assistance, was running down Wickmore Hill. It was a long descent--nearly three miles--but was not steep, and there were no sharp curves until near the bottom. It was a useful spot for brake-tests.
"I wonder who that old ass was," mused Philip. "Rum bird. One of our cars, too. There was something familiar about his voice. Road-hog, indeed!" Philip grunted indignantly, for he was a virtuous motorist. "Now I will really hog it a bit: this is a lovely piece of road. I'll let the old car rip for a couple of hundred yards and then see what the Ought-to-Scrap-It will do. There was a girl with him, too. I wonder what her face was like, behind that thick blue veil. Now, then, old friend, put your back into it!" He patted the steering-wheel affectionately. "Off you go!... No, steady! Wait a minute."
He closed down the throttle, for another car was coming down the hill behind him, and he intended to let it pass in order to have a clear road for his own operations. He looked round.
All was not well with the oncoming car. The horn was being blown unceasingly, and some one appeared to be shouting. As Philip looked, he saw that it was the Britannia car which he had passed at the top of the hill. It was going thirty miles an hour and swaying a little from side to side. Next moment it was past him.