dog, and
sneaking towards the house, with the farmer at his heels. The farmer was
a big fellow, and dependable; still, I ran and locked the door. I
suppose the Beast finished dressing and packed his bag. I heard nothing;
but half an hour later (I'd bathed and dressed like lightning, for
once), when we were just sitting down to breakfast, and Brown had come
into the room to ask a question, there was a light pattering on the
stairs; the front door opened, and somebody went out. Two minutes later
came the whirring of a motor, and I jumped up.

"Oh, Brown!" I exclaimed, "if he should have taken _your_ car!"

"No fear of that," said Brown. "I know the sound just as I know one
human voice from another. That's his Pieper. It's all right."

Still I wasn't at ease. "But he may have done something bad to yours.
He's capable of anything," I said. "Do let's go and see."

Brown flushed up a little. "I'll go," he said. He was off on the word,
racing across the farmyard. I couldn't eat my breakfast till he came
back, which he did in a few minutes. I knew by his face before he spoke
that something was wrong. "I was a fool to leave the car for even a
second till he was out of the way," said the poor fellow. "Every tyre
gashed. No doubt he'd have liked to smash up the car altogether if he'd
had time, but his object was to do his worst and get off scot free. He's
done both. It's thanks to you and your quick thought that the damage is
so small."

"If it hadn't been for me he wouldn't have been here," I almost wept.
"Now we're delayed again just when I began to hope that all might be
well."

"All shall be well," answered Brown encouragingly. "We'll go 'on the
rims' as far as Amboise."

I didn't know what it was to go on the rims, but when we'd settled up
with the farmer, and I'd said a last, long good-bye to my car's bones
(which I made the landlord a present of), I found out. It's something
like "going on your uppers." I don't need to explain that, do I? But the
car is such a beauty that seeing it with, its tyres _en deshabille_
seemed an indignity. Brown couldn't help showing his pride in it, and I
don't wonder. He is certainly a "Mascot" to me, for he has got me out of
every scrape I've been in since he "crossed my path," as the melodramas
say. And now this lovely car! On the way to Amboise he told me what it
was to be let for. Only twenty francs a day. I protested, because
Rattray had said that good cars couldn't be hired for l