It was the fly that let her go. Whack! came the fly into Mr. Purdie's eye. "Whoa!" cried Mr. Purdie. "Bother! dear me! Whoa!" Up went Mr. Purdie's knees in the twitch of pain; up came his hand to his tortured eye; round went the released pedals; forward shot the tricycle.
"Hurrah!" cried Percival. "Well done! Ripping of you!"
Mr. Purdie, between agony of his eye and terror for his safety, gave a shrill cry of dismay; took a grab at the brake and a grab back at his eye; received two terrible blows on the backs of his legs that fumbled wildly for the whizzing treadles, and barked out: "Brake! Brake! Fly in my eye!"
"Which eye?" Percival shouted, enjoying the speed enormously.
The alarmed tutor bundled his words in a heap the better to get them out and arrest the catastrophe that threatened.
"Catchabrakeandontbesilly! Catchabrakeabekilled!"
Percival bawled: "We don't want the brake! I can't reach the brake! I like it! We're simply whizzing! Mind your legs!" His cap was gone. His hair fluttered in the rushing wind. His face was crimson with excited glee. His clear laughter on its strong note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" rose high above the rattling of all the machine's vitals and the cries of the agonised bearer of the fly. He clung tightly to the podgy waist and shouted: "Ha! Ha! Ha! We're whizzing! We're whizzing!"
Mr. Purdie took another six hammers on his legs and struck a note of new alarm.
"I'm blind, you know! I can't see! I can't steer!"
"A straight road!" Percival bawled. "Look out, though! A corner coming!"
"How can I look out? Draggle your legs on the ground!"
"Twiddle to the left!" Percival bellowed. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Twiddle, Mr. Purdie, twiddle!"
Mr. Purdie twiddled frantically; the tricycle outraced his efforts. "Look out for yourself!" from Percival, and with a loud and exceeding bitter cry from Mr. Purdie, the machine plunged at the hedge, planted Mr. Purdie very firmly into the midst, shot Percival firmly on top of him, took a violent somersault across the ditch that skirted the hedge, and poised itself above them.
Mr. Purdie's last despairing cry cut sharply across Percival's peals of laughter--then the crash. The fluttering beat of wings as a cloud of chaffinches, terrified by this amazing avalanche, burst from the floor of the wood beyond the hedge, then peal on peal of laughter again from Percival.