"DEAR PYECROFT,-This should reach you about the time you turn over to the Hierophant at Zanzibar, and I hope finds you as fit as when we parted.

"I always thought, as you said three years ago, that it would be a sin and a shame not to make a story out of some of the things that have happened between you and Hinchcliff and me, every time we met.

"Now I have written out some of the tales. Of course, I ought to have stuck to what I knew would go down quietly; but one thing leading to another, I put it all in, and it made six Number One tales. I put in about the reply-telegram at Wool—when you and Cordery tried to help the dumb girl with the pig; I put in about the Plymouth babythe night after the Belligerent paid off; and I put in about Portland Station and the Captain, and the penny-piece which we saw. Nevertheless, when it was all done, a man that I can trust in the literary line said that, to go down at all, those three last numbers would have to be translated into French; and he recommended me to hand them over to a captain in the French Navy called Loti. I did not care to accede to this, so I took them out and laid them by till happier times, and now people will never know what they have lost. However, enough residuum remains to amuse, if not to instruct; and I can always put the rest into a large, fine book.

"Hinchcliff had the Djinn at the Coronation Review. I met him on the beach afterwards, and I got him to check the story of our trips in the motors. He said he could guarantee your being agreeable to it, if I cut out all about what happened on the Cramberhurst Road, as it would hurt Agg's feelings. I know, from what you said at the time, that you didn't care about Agg's feelings; so I suppose Hinchcliff and Agg have made it up.

"The other two tales you checked yourself, vivâ voce, before last Manoeuvres ; but I put some more to them on my own later, and it is very likely that I have not got all the Navy minutia quite right. About Antonio, you were not then in a condition to be accurate all through; and about No. 267, I was then in strange surroundings and rather excited myself. Therefore there may be much that is not technically true; but Hinchcliff says I have got the spirit all correct. You will see, as these stories come out, the care that I have taken to disguise your name and rating, and everything else that might reflect upon you. Unless you care to give yourself away, which I have never known you do yet, detection is quite impossible for you or Hinchcliff. Hence I am writing freely, and though accused of extravaganzas by some people, can rest confident that there is much more in these literary efforts of mine than meets the casual eye.

Yours as before,

RUDYARD KIPLING. "P.S.-Since writing the above there has been a hitch about the Antonio tale and the proceedings of No. 267; it being freely alleged that Antonio won't go down, because it is a bit too thick (this shows how much people know), and 267 would be subversive to discipline, as well as likely to annoy admirals. Consequently I have had to begin at the wrong end-with the motor tripswhich is about the same as securing arms at the beginning of G. Q.'s, if I am right in my technical inferences. Both you and Hinchcliff will thus suffer from being presented to the public manoeuvring upon the land, which is not your natural element, instead of upon the sea, which is. I, being an author, am not supposed to have any feelings."

I caught sight of their faces as we came up behind the cart in the narrow Sussex lane; but though it was not eleven o'clock, they were both asleep.

That the carrier was on the wrong side of

B

the road made no difference to his language when I rang my bell. He said aloud of motor-cars, and specially of steam ones, all the things which I had read in the faces of superior coachmen. Then he pulled slant

wise across me.

There is a vociferous steam air-pump attached to my car which can be applied at pleasure.

The cart was removed about a bowshot's length in seven and a quarter seconds, to the accompaniment of parcels clattering. At the foot of the next hill the horse stopped, and the two men came out over the tailboard.

My engineer backed and swung the car, ready to move out of reach.

"The blighted egg-boiler has steam up,' said Mr. Hinchcliff, pausing to gather a large stone. "Temporise with the beggar, Pye, till the sights come on!"

"I can't leave my 'orse!" roared the carrier; "but bring 'em up 'ere, an' I'll kill 'em all over again.'

'Good morning, Mr. Pyecroft," I called cheerfully. "Can I give you a lift anywhere ?"

The attack broke up round my forewheels.

"Well, we do 'ave the knack o' meeting in puris naturalibus, as I've so often said." Mr. Pyecroft wrung my hand. "Yes, I'm on leaf. So's Hinch. We're visiting friends among these kopjes."

A monotonous bellowing up the road persisted, where the carrier was still calling for corpses.

"That's Agg. He's Hinch's cousin. You aren't fortunit in your fam'ly connections, Hinch. 'E's usin' language in derogation of good manners. Go and abolish 'im.'

Henry Salt Hinchcliff stalked back to the cart and spoke to his cousin. I recall much that the wind bore to me of his words and the carrier's. It seered as if the friendship of years were dissolving amid throes.

"That just shows that you ain't fit for your rating. D'you suppose that a man who earns his livin' by runnin' 30-knot destroyers for a parstime-for a parstime, mark you!is going to lie down before any blighted land-crabbing steam-pinnace on springs?"

Yet that was what he did. Directly under the car he lay and looked upward into pipes -petrol, steam, and water-with a keen and searching eye.

I telegraphed Mr. Pyecroft a question. "Not-in-the-least," was the answer. "Steam gadgets always take him that way. We 'ad a bit of a riot at Parsley Green through 'is tryin' to show a traction-engine. haulin' gipsy-wagons how to turn corners.'

"Tell him everything he wants to know," I said to the engineer, as I dragged out a rug and spread it on the roadside.

"He don't want much showing," said the engineer. Now, the two men had not, counting the time we took to stuff our pipes, been together more than three minutes.

This," said Pyecroft, driving an elbow back into the mallow and the scabious of the hedge-foot," is a little bit of all right. Hinch, I shouldn't let too much o' that 'ot muckings drop in my eyes. Your leaf's up in a fortnight, an' you'll be wantin' 'em."

"Here!" said Hinchcliff, still on his back, to the engineer. "Come here and show me the lead of this pipe." And the engineer lay down beside him.

"That's all right," said Mr. Hinchcliff, rising. "But she's more of a bag of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft "-he pointed to the back seat-" and I'll 'ave a look at the forced draught."

The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he had a brother an artificer in the Navy.

"They couple very well, those two," said Pyecroft critically, while Hinchcliff sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay jets of steam.

"Now take me up the road," he said. My man, for form's sake, looked at me,

ditched!" I cried, as the car ran down the road.

"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. But, after all, it's your steamin' gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked 'is Maker, on all' fours, that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a blighted bulgine till the nineteenth prox. Now look at 'im! Only look at 'im !"

We could see, down the long slope of the road, my driver surrendering his seat to Hinchcliff, while the car flickered generously from hedge to hedge,

course, Hinch don't know the elements o' that evolution; but 'e fell back on 'is naval rank an' office, an' Agg grew peevish. I wasn't sorry to get out of the cart. . . 'Ave you ever considered how when you an' I meet, so to say, there's nearly always

a remarkable hectic day ahead of us? Hullo ! Be'old the beef-boat returnin'!”

He rose as the car climbed up the slope, and shouted:

bow

66 In

Way 'nuff!" "You be quiet! cried Hinchcliff, and drew up opposite the rug, his dark face shining with joy. "She's the Poetry o' Motion! She's the Angel's Dream. She's- He shut off steam, and the slope being against her, the car slid soberly down hill again.

"What's this here? I've got the brake on!" he yelled.

"It doesn't hold backwards," I said. "Put her on the mid-link."

"That's a nasty one for the chief engineer o' the Djinn, 31-knot T.B.D.," said Pyecroft. “Do you know what a mid-link is, Hinch?”

Once more the car returned to us; but as Pyecroft stooped to gather up the rug, Hinchcliff jerked the lever testily, and with prawn-like speed she retired backwards into her own steam.

Apparently 'e don't," said Pyecroft. "What's he done now, sir?"

"Reversed her. I've done it myself." "But he's an engineer."

For the third time the car manoeuvred up hill.

"I'll learn you to come alongside properly, if I keep you 'tiffies out all night!" shouted Pyecroft. It was evidently a quotation. Hinchcliff's face grew livid, and, his hand ever so slightly working on the throttle, the car buzzed twenty yards up hill.

"That's enough. We'll take your word for it. The mountain will come Ma'ommed. Stand fast!"

to

Pyecroft and I and the rug marched up where she and Hinchcliff fumed together.

"Not as easy as it looks-eh, Hinch ?" "It is dead easy. I'm going to drive her to Instead Wick-aren't I?" said the first class engine-room artificer. I thought of his performances with No. 267 and nodded. After all, it was a little thing to accord to pure genius.

"But my engineer will stand by—at first," I added.

"An' you a family man, too," muttered

Pump!" said the engineer. water's droppin'."

"Your

"I know that. Where the 'Eavens is that blighted by-pass ?

He beat his right or throttle hand madly on the side of the car till he found the bent rod that more or less controls the pump, and, neglecting all else, twisted it furiously.

My engineer grabbed the steering-bar just in time to save us lurching into a ditch.

"If I was a burnin' peacock, with two 'undred bloodshot eyes in my shinin' tail, I'd need 'em all on this job!" said Hinch. "Don't talk! Steer! This ain't the North Atlantic," Pyecroft replied.

"Blast my stokers! Why, the steam's dropped fifty pounds!" Hinchcliff cried. "Fire's blown out," said the engineer. 'Stop her!"

"Does she do that often?" said Hinch, descending.

Sometimes."

Any time?"

Any time a cross-wind catches her."

The engineer produced a match and stooped.

And the County of Sussex slid by in slow time.

"'Ow cautious is the 'tiffy-bird!" said Pyecroft.

"Even in a destroyer," Hinch snapped over his shoulder, "you ain't expected to con and drive simultaneous. Don't address any remarks to me!"

My car never lights twice in the same fashion. This time she back-fired superbly, and Pyecroft went out over the right rear wheel in a column of rich yellow flame.

“I've seen a mine explode at Bantry--once-prematoor," he volunteered.

"That's all right," said Hinchcliff, brushing down his singed beard with a singed

Far up the shaded road into secluded Bromlingleigh we saw the carrier's cart at rest before the post-office.

"He's bung in the fairway. 'Ow'm I to get past?" said Hinchcliff. "There's no room. 'Ere, Pye, come and relieve the wheel!"

"We weren't," Hinchcliff grunted. "There's some wakes wakes would break a snake's back; but this of yours, so to speak, would fair turn a tapeworm giddy. That's all I wish to observe, Hinch. Cart

at anchor on the port-bow. It's Agg!"

"Nay, nay, Pauline. You've made your own bed. You've as good as left your 'appy 'ome an' family cart to steal it. Now you lie on it."

"Ring your bell," I sug gested.

"Glory!"

said Pyecroft,

falling forward into the nape of Hinchcliff's neck, as the car stopped dead.

"Get out o' my back-hair! That must have been the blighted brake I touched off," Hinchcliff muttered, and repaired his error tumultuously.

We passed the cart as though we had been all Bruges belfry. Agg, from the post-office door, regarded us with a too pacific eye. I remembered later that the pretty postmistress looked on us pityingly.

Hinchcliff wiped the sweat from his brow and drew breath. It was the first vehicle that he had passed, and I sympathised with him.

"You needn't grip so hard," said my engineer. "She steers as easy as a bicycle.'

"Ho! You suppose I ride bicycles up an' down my engine-room?" was the answer. "I've other things to think about. She's a terror. She's a whistlin' lunatic. I'd sooner run the old South Easter at Simon's Town than 'er !

"One of the nice things they say about her," I interrupted, "is that no engineer is needed to run this machine."

"No. They'd need about seven.” "Common sense only is needed,' I quoted.

"Make a note of that, Hinch. Just common sense." Pyecroft put in.

"And now," I said, "we'll have to take in water. There isn't more than a couple of inches in the tank.

"Where d'you get it from?'
"Oh!-cottages and such-like."

"Yes, but that being so, where does our much advertised twenty-five miles an hour come in? Ain't a fly more to the point?"