must not beg it. We are
going down to Watford--that is enough for you. Get the car ready as
soon as possible, and let me know at once if there is anything the
matter with her."

I promised to do so, and went round to the mews immediately. "Benny"
seemed to me just a good-natured lovesick old fool, who had got hold of
some new girl in the country and was going off to spoon her. The car I
found to be one of the latest forty White's in tip-top trim. She
steamed at once, and when I had put a new heater in, there was nothing
more to be done to her, except to wash her down, a thing no
self-respecting mechanic will ever do if he can get another to take the
job on for him. So I hired a loafer who was hanging about the mews,
and set him to the work while I read the papers and smoked a cigarette.

He was a playful little cuss to be sure, one of those "ne'er-grow-ups"
you meet about stables, and ready enough to gossip when I gave him the
chance.

"He's a wonder, is Colmacher," he remarked as he splashed and hissed
about the wheels. "Takes his car out half a dozen times in as many
hours, and then never rides in her for three months. You would be
engaged in place of Mr. Walter, I suppose. They say he's gone to
America, though I don't rightly know whether that's true or not."

I answered him without looking up from my paper.

"Who says he's in America?"

"Why, the servants say it. Ellen the housemaid and me--but that ain't
for the newspapers. So Mr. Walter's home, is he? Well, he do walk
about, to be sure, and him not left for New York ten days ago."

"You seem to be angry about it, my boy."

"Well no, it ain't nothing to me, to be sure, though I must say as
Benny's one after my own heart. The girls he do know, and mostly after
'em when the sun's gone down. Would it be the young lady at Bristol
this time, or another? He wus took right bad down in Wiltshire larst
time I heard of 'im, but perhaps he's cured hisself drinking of the
waters. Anyway, it ain't nothing to me, for I'm off to Margate
to-morrow."

He waited for me to speak, but seeing that I was bent on reading my
paper, made no further remark until his job was done. When next I saw
him it was at eleven o'clock on the following day, just as I was
driving the car round to "Benny's" to take the old boy down to Watford
as he wished. Jumping on the step, the lad put a funny question:

"You're a good sort," he said. "Will you forward this bit of a
tel