retend to be respectable and fat when bent on playing tricks. Mr.
Davoren, still surprised but quite good-humoured, got out of his car.
Willie Thornton and his sergeant searched it thoroughly. They found
nothing in the way of a weapon more deadly than a set of tyre levers.
Mr. Davoren was told he might go on. In the end he did go on, but not
until he, the sergeant, Willie Thornton, and one of the sentries
had worked themselves hot at the starting-crank. Ford engines are
queer-tempered things, with a strong sense of self-respect. When stopped
accidentally and suddenly, they often stand on their dignity and refuse
to go on again. All this was pleasant and exciting for the people of
Dunedin, who felt that they were not wasting their day or getting wet in
vain. And still better things were in store for them. At eleven o'clock
a large and handsome car appeared at the end of the street. It moved
noiselessly and swiftly towards the barricade. The chauffeur, leaning
back behind his glass screen, drove as if the village and the street
belonged to him. Dunedin is, in fact, the property of his master, the
Earl of Ramelton; so the chauffeur had some right to be stately and
arrogant. Every man, woman, and child in Dunedin knew the car, and there
was tiptoe excitement. Would the soldiers venture to stop and search
this car? The excitement became intense when it was seen that the Earl
himself was in the car. He lay back very comfortably smoking a cigar in
the covered tonneau of the limousine. Lord Ramelton is a wealthy man and
Deputy Lieutenant for the county. He sits and sometimes speaks in the
House of Lords. He is well known as an uncompromising Unionist, whose
loyalty to the king and empire is so firm as to be almost aggressive.

There was a gasp of amazement when the sentry, standing with his rifle
in his hands, called "Halt!" He gave the order to the earl's chauffeur
quite as abruptly and disrespectfully as he had given it to Mr. Davoren.
The chauffeur stopped the car and leaned back in his seat with an air of
detachment and slight boredom. It was his business to stop or start the
car and to drive where he was told. Why it was stopped or started or
where it went were matters of entire indifference to him. Lord Ramelton
let down the window beside him and put out his head.

"What the devil is the matter?" he said.

He spoke to the chauffeur, but it was Willie Thornton who answered him.

"I'm afraid I must trouble you to get out