The animal, being in some perplexity, danced a little in the narrow
street, and then it had come about and it was backing, backing, on
the narrow pavement and towards the plate-glass window of a book and
newspaper shop. Benham tugged at its mouth much harder than ever.
Prothero saw the window bending under the pressure of the wheel. A sense
of the profound seriousness of life and of the folly of this expedition
came upon him. With extreme nimbleness he got down just as the window
burst. It went with an explosion like a pistol shot, and then a clatter
of falling glass. People sprang, it seemed, from nowhere, and jostled
about Prothero, so that he became a peripheral figure in the discussion.
He perceived that a man in a green apron was holding the horse, and that
various people were engaged in simultaneous conversation with Benham,
who with a pale serenity of face and an awful calm of manner, dealt with
each of them in turn.

"I'm sorry," he was saying. "Somebody ought to have been in charge of
the barrow. Here are my cards. I am ready to pay for any damage....

"The barrow ought not to have been there....

"Yes, I am going on. Of course I'm going on. Thank you."

He beckoned to the man who had held the horse and handed him
half-a-crown. He glanced at Prothero as one might glance at a stranger.
"Check!" he said. The horse went on gravely. Benham lifted out his whip.
He appeared to have clean forgotten Prothero. Perhaps presently he would
miss him. He went on past Trinity, past the ruddy brick of St. John's.
The curve of the street hid him from Prothero's eyes.

Prothero started in pursuit. He glimpsed the dog-cart turning into
Bridge Street. He had an impression that Benham used the whip at the
corner, and that the dog-cart went forward out of sight with a startled
jerk. Prothero quickened his pace.

But when he got to the fork between the Huntingdon Road and the
Cottenham Road, both roads were clear.

He spent some time in hesitation. Then he went along the Huntingdon Road
until he came upon a road-mender, and learnt that Benham had passed that
way. "Going pretty fast 'e was," said the road-mender, "and whipping 'is
'orse. Else you might 'a thought 'e was a boltin' with 'im." Prothero
decided that if Benham came back at all he would return by way of
Cottenham, and it was on the Cottenham Road that at last he encountered
his friend again.

Benham was coming along at that good pace which all experienced horses
w