engine-room artificer. "Get over the far side, and be ready to catch her if she jibs on the uphill."
We crossed that elastic structure and stood ready amid the bracken. Hinchcliffe gave her a full steam and she came like a destroyer on her trial. There was a crack, a flicker of white water, and she was in our arms fifty yards up the slope; or rather, we were behind her pushing her madly towards a patch of raw gravel whereon her wheels could bite. Of the bridge remained only a few wildly vibrating hop-poles, and those hurdles which had been sunk in the mud of the approaches.
"She—she kicked out all the loose ones behind her, as she finished with ’em," Hinchcliffe panted.
"At the Agricultural Hall they would ’ave been fastened down with ribbons," said Pyecroft. "But this ain’t Olympia."
"She nearly wrenched the tiller out of my hand. Don’t you think I conned her like a cock-angel, Pye?"
"I never saw anything like it," said our guest propitiatingly. "And now, gentlemen, if you’ll let me go back to Linghurst, I promise you you won’t hear another word from me."
"Get in," said Pyecroft, as we puffed out on to a metalled road once more. "We ’aven’t begun on you yet."
"A joke’s a joke," he replied. "I don’t mind a little bit of a joke myself, but this is going beyond it."
"Miles an’ miles beyond it, if this machine stands up. We’ll want water pretty soon."
