you ask me," said Blithe, "it's all over but the shouting. The
talk I had with Plowman over the telephone settled it. In fact, that
was when the shouting began. Which reminds me that the trunk line from
London to Girdle requires attention. It was not a conversation at all.
It was a joint rhapsody."

"Personally," said the Judge, "I detest the telephone. It's a pomp and
a vanity of a wicked world. You can never be sure who you're talking
to, nor how many people are listening; there's no record of what you've
said and no evidence that you've even said it. The invention is a
convenient nuisance, conducive to blasphemy, and should be abated."

The car rolled on.

Presently, though none of them knew it, they slipped past Anthony's
cottage and so down Gallowstree Hill to the village they sought.

To say that Mr. Samuel Plowman was ready and waiting in no way
describes his condition. The little lawyer was wellnigh beside himself
with expectation. The prospect of meeting a Justice of the King's
Bench intoxicated. The possibility of entertaining such a one in the
flesh and the dining-room of The Nook, Girdle, made tales of Paradise
seem tame. A burning discussion with Mrs. Plowman had resulted in a
decision not to offer his lordship lunch. That would be attempting too
much. Cakes and ale, however, flanked by a dish of sandwiches and a
tantalus, made a collation at once independent of service and adaptable
to every appetite. Furniture was moved, rugs were transferred, the
first floor was spoiled to turn the spare bedroom into Mr. Plowman's
conception of a Judge's lavatory. It had been mutually agreed that
Mrs. Plowman's presence would be intrusive, but, in the circumstances,
to go soberly to church was more than the good lady could stomach. An
O. P. was therefore established in the bathroom beside the geyser, to
which point of vantage Mrs. Plowman undertook to repair the moment the
car was heard....

The Nook standing close to a corner of the London road, seven times was
the O. P. occupied and evacuated between half-past eleven and twelve,
and three times did Mr. Plowman actually throw open his door and
advance, nervous but beaming, into the drive, only to hear the
deceitful engine once more gathering speed. The fourth time, however,
the purr of the engine fell to a steady mutter, which was maintained.
The car was not at the gate, but it was not moving. Possibly its
occupants were inquiring for The Nook....