e the whole lot?" said Bert, waving his hand at the
deboshed and blackened ruins on the ground.

"I'm awfully afraid I can't," said the Oxford man. "Awfully sorry, you
know."

"Then I'll have to stick 'ere for a bit," said Bert. "I got to see the
thing through. You go on, Edna."

"Don't like leavin' you, Bert."

"You can't 'elp it, Edna."...

The last Edna saw of Bert was his figure, in charred and blackened
shirtsleeves, standing in the dusk. He was musing deeply by the mixed
ironwork and ashes of his vanished motor-bicycle, a melancholy figure.
His retinue of spectators had shrunk now to half a dozen figures.
Flossie and Grubb were preparing to follow her desertion.

"Cheer up, old Bert!" cried Edna, with artificial cheerfulness. "So
long."

"So long, Edna," said Bert.

"See you to-morrer."

"See you to-morrer," said Bert, though he was destined, as a matter of
fact, to see much of the habitable globe before he saw her again.

Bert began to light matches from a borrowed boxful, and search for a
half-crown that still eluded him among the charred remains.

His face was grave and melancholy.

"I WISH that 'adn't 'appened," said Flossie, riding on with Grubb....

And at last Bert was left almost alone, a sad, blackened Promethean
figure, cursed by the gift of fire. He had entertained vague ideas of
hiring a cart, of achieving miraculous repairs, of still snatching some
residual value from his one chief possession. Now, in the darkening
night, he perceived the vanity of such intentions. Truth came to him
bleakly, and laid her chill conviction upon him. He took hold of the
handle-bar, stood the thing up, tried to push it forward. The tyreless
hind-wheel was jammed hopelessly, even as he feared. For a minute or so
he stood upholding his machine, a motionless despair. Then with a great
effort he thrust the ruins from him into the ditch, kicked at it once,
regarded it for a moment, and turned his face resolutely Londonward.

He did not once look back.

"That's the end of THAT game!" said Bert. "No more teuf-teuf-teuf for
Bert Smallways for a year or two. Good-bye 'olidays!... Oh! I ought to
'ave sold the blasted thing when I had a chance three years ago."

3

The next morning found the firm of Grubb & Smallways in a state
of profound despondency. It seemed a small matter to them that the
newspaper and cigarette shop opposite displayed such placards as this:--

--------------------------------------- REPO