"Indeed! Is this the Mr. Templeton who narrowly escaped gassing my old friend Colonel Beavis?"
"A pure accident, sir, due to the colonel's adventurous spirit and a loose screw. Templeton was very much cut up about it."
"Dry up!" growled Templeton in a fierce undertone.
"Well, I congratulate Mr. O'Reilly," said the colonel, his eyes twinkling. "I gather that but for Mr. Templeton's road yacht he wouldn't have got here till after twelve, and he seemed a little hurt when I told him that a few minutes are neither here nor there. One must give a time limit, of course; but I shouldn't have turned down a good offer that happened to arrive a few minutes late. But what's this?"
A crowd of privates, shouting vociferously, was approaching from the direction of the road. A few words were distinguishable in the babel. "This way, governor." "Two to one on the long un." And as the throng turned into the lane between the huts, among the khaki figures appeared Philemon Noakes and his fur-coated companion, trotting along in feverish haste. The soldiers fell back as they neared the commandant's hut, and the two civilians advanced alone.
"Are you the colonel?" asked Noakes, panting.
"I'm the Mayor of Pudlington. This is my friend Ebenezer Saunders, who's come for to tender for the camp waste."
There was something aggressive in each man's manner of speech. The colonel looked at his wrist watch.
"The time mentioned was twelve o'clock, gentlemen. It is now eight minutes past. You are eight minutes too late."
"You won't draw the line so tight," said Noakes. "A few minutes are neither here nor there in a matter of this sort, and as the Mayor of Pudlington----
"But it's all along o' this infernal machine," cried Noakes, angrily, throwing out his hand towards the road yacht. "It was on the wrong side o' the road, and we couldn't pass it no-how; obstructing of the king's highway: that's what it was; and as the Mayor of Pudlington I'll have the law of them, that I will."
"Oh, come, Mr. Noakes," said Eves, pleasantly. "You tried that once before, you know. You remember my friend Templeton, even if you've forgotten me. As a matter of fact, sir," he added, turning to the colonel, "they overdrove their car, and the big ends dropped off; otherwise--well, I shouldn't have been surprised if there'd been a bit of a scrap somewhere about the top of the hill."