o of men in the room, while
carefully maintaining an air of such utter fatigue as to appear
indifferent to all that passed around him. Nobody noticed him, for which
he was thankful. And presently, when he became accustomed to the various
contending voices, which in their changing tones of gruff or gentle,
quick or slow, made a confused din upon his ears, he found out that the
general conversation was chiefly centred on one subject, that of the
very motor-car whose occupants he desired to shun.

"Serve 'em right!" growled one man. "Serve 'em right to 'ave broke down!
'Ope the darned thing's broke altogether!"

"You shouldn't say that,--'taint Christian," expostulated his neighbour
at the same table. "Them cars cost a heap o' money, from eight 'undred
to two thousand pounds, I've 'eerd tell."

"Who cares!" retorted the other. "Them as can pay a fortin on a car to
swish 'emselves about in, should be made to keep on payin' till they're
cleaned out o' money for good an' all. The road's a reg'lar hell since
them engines started along cuttin' everything to pieces. There aint a
man, woman, nor child what's safe from the moneyed murderers."

"Oh come, I say!" ejaculated a big, burly young fellow in corduroys.
"Moneyed murderers is going a bit too strong!"

"No 'taint!" said the first man who had spoken. "That's what the
motor-car folks are--no more nor less. Only t' other day in Taunton, a
woman as was the life an' soul of 'er 'usband an' childern, was knocked
down by a car as big as a railway truck. It just swept 'er off the curb
like a bundle o' rags. She picked 'erself up again an' walked 'ome,
tremblin' a little, an' not knowin' rightly what 'ad chanced to 'er, an'
in less than an hour she was dead. An' what did they say at the inquest?
Just 'death from shock'--an' no more. For them as owned the murderin'
car was proprietors o' a big brewery, and the coroner hisself 'ad shares
in it. That's 'ow justice is done nowadays!"

"Yes, we's an obligin' lot, we poor folks," observed a little man in the
rough garb of a cattle-driver, drawing his pipe from his mouth as he
spoke. "We lets the rich ride over us on rubber tyres an' never sez a
word on our own parts, but trusts to the law for doin' the same to a
millionaire as 'twould to a beggar,--but, Lord!--don't we see every day
as 'ow the millionaire gets off easy while the beggar goes to prison?
There used to be justice in old England, but the time for that's gone
past."

"Th