-embedded.... Do you
mind getting out and turning the wheel back? Then if I reverse, perhaps
we'll get a move on...."

Mr. Direck descended, and there were considerable efforts.

"If you'd just grip the spokes. Yes, so.... One, Two, Three!... No!
Well, let's just sit here until somebody comes along to help us. Oh!
Somebody will come all right. Won't you get up again?"

And after a reflective moment Mr. Direck resumed his seat beside
Mr. Britling....

Section 6

The two gentlemen smiled at each other to dispel any suspicion of
discontent.

"My driving leaves something to be desired," said Mr. Britling with
an air of frank impartiality. "But I have only just got this car for
myself--after some years of hired cars--the sort of lazy arrangement
where people supply car, driver, petrol, tyres, insurance and everything
at so much a month. It bored me abominably. I can't imagine now how
I stood it for so long. They sent me down a succession of compact,
scornful boys who used to go fast when I wanted to go slow, and slow
when I wanted to go fast, and who used to take every corner on the
wrong side at top speed, and charge dogs and hens for the sport of it,
and all sorts of things like that. They would not even let me choose my
roads. I should have got myself a car long ago, and driven it, if it
wasn't for that infernal business with a handle one had to do when the
engine stopped. But here, you see, is a reasonably cheap car with an
electric starter--American, I need scarcely say. And here I am--going
at my own pace."

Mr. Direck glanced for a moment at the pretty disorder of the hedge in
which they were embedded, and smiled and admitted that it was certainly
much more agreeable.

Before he had finished saying as much Mr. Britling was talking again.

He had a quick and rather jerky way of speaking; he seemed to fire out a
thought directly it came into his mind, and he seemed to have a loaded
magazine of thoughts in his head. He spoke almost exactly twice as fast
as Mr. Direck, clipping his words much more, using much compacter
sentences, and generally cutting his corners, and this put Mr. Direck
off his game.

That rapid attack while the transatlantic interlocutor is deploying is
indeed a not infrequent defect of conversations between Englishmen and
Americans. It is a source of many misunderstandings. The two conceptions
of conversation differ fundamentally. The English are much less disposed
to listen than the Am