of the car, sir; you and the
chauffeur."

He had spoken quite as civilly to Mr. Davoren half an hour before. He
added "sir" this time because Lord Ramelton is an oldish man, and Willie
Thornton had been well brought up and taught by his mother that some
respect is due to age. He did not know that he was speaking to an earl
and a very great man. Lord Ramelton was not in the least soothed by the
civility.

"Drive on, Simpkins," he said to the chauffeur.

Simpkins would have driven on if the sentry had not been standing, with
a rifle in his hands, exactly in front of the car. He did the next best
thing to driving on. He blew three sharp blasts of warning on his horn.
The sentry took no notice of the horn. The men of the Wessex Fusiliers
are determined and well-disciplined fellows. Willie Thornton's
orders mattered to that sentry. Lord Ramelton's did not. Nor did the
chauffeur's horn.

Willie Thornton stepped up to the window of the car. He noticed as he
did so that an earl's coronet surmounting the letter R was painted
on the door. He spoke apologetically, but he was still quite firm. A
coronet painted on the door of a car is no proof that the man inside is
an earl. The Colonel had warned Willie that "these fellows" were as cute
as foxes.

"I'm afraid I must trouble you to get out, sir," said Willie. "My orders
are to search every car that goes through the village."

Lord Ramelton had once been a soldier himself. He knew that the word
"orders" has a sacred force.

"Oh, all right," he said. "It's damned silly; but if you've got to do
it, get it over as quick as you can."

He turned up the collar of his coat and stepped out into the rain. The
chauffeur left his seat and stood in the mud with the air of a patient
but rather sulky martyr. What is the use of belonging to the aristocracy
of labour, of being a member of the Motor Drivers' Union, of being able
to hold up civilisation to ransom, if you are yourself liable to be held
up and made to stand in the rain by a common soldier, a man no better
than an unskilled labourer. Nothing but the look of the rifle in the
unskilled labourer's hand would have induced Simpkins to leave his
sheltered place in the car.

Willie Thornton had every intention of conducting his search rapidly,
perhaps not very thoroughly. Lord Ramelton's appearance, his voice, and
the coronet on the panel, all taken together, were convincing evidence
that he was not one of "these fellows," and migh