“Joe, the harness broke and had to be tied up.  That is what kept me so late,” I explained.

“The harness broke!” he exclaimed.  “How the doose is that!  Broke here in the trace, and that strap!  Well, I’ll be hanged!  I thought them straps couldn’t break only onder a tremenjous strain.  The boss is so dashed partickler too.  I believe he’ll sool me off the place; and I looked at that harness only yesterday.  I can’t make out how it come to break so simple.  The boss will rise the devil of a shine, and say you might have been killed.”

This put a different complexion on things.  I knew Joe Slocombe could mend the harness with little trouble, as it was because he was what uncle Jay-Jay termed a “handy divil” at saddlery that he was retained at Caddagat.  I said carelessly: 

“If you mend the harness at once, Joe, uncle Julius need not be bothered about it.  As it happened, there is no harm done, and I won’t mention the matter.”

“Thank you, miss,” he said eagerly.  “I’ll mend it at once.”

Now that I had that piece of business so luckily disposed of, I did not feel the least nervous about meeting grannie.  I took the mail in my arms and entered the dining-room, chirping pleasantly: 

“Grannie, I’m such a good mail-boy.  I have heaps of letters, and did not forget one of your commissions.”

“I don’t want to hear that now,” she said, drawing her dear old mouth into a straight line, which told me I was not going to palm things off as easily as I thought.  “I want a reason for your conduct this afternoon.”

“Explain what, grannie?” I inquired.

“None of that pretence!  Not only have you been most outrageously insulting to Mr Hawden when I sent him with you, but you also deliberately and wilfully disobeyed me.”

Uncle Julius listened attentively, and Hawden looked at me with such a leer of triumph that my fingers tingled to smack his cars.  Turning to my grandmother, I said distinctly and cuttingly: 

“Grannie, I did not intentionally disobey you.  Disobedience never entered my head.  I hate that thing.  His presence was detestable to me.  When he got out at the gate I could not resist the impulse to drive off and leave him there.  He looked such a complete jackdaw that you would have laughed yourself to see him.”

“Dear, oh dear!  You wicked hussy, what will become of you!” And grannie shook her head, trying to look stern, and hiding a smile in her serviette.

“Your manners are not improving, Sybylla.  I fear you must be incorrigible,” said aunt Helen.

When uncle Jay-Jay heard the whole particulars of the affair, he lay back in his chair and laughed fit to kill himself.

“You ought to be ashamed to always encourage her in her tomboyish ways, Julius.  It grieves me to see she makes no effort to acquire a ladylike demeanour,” said grannie.

Mr Hawden had come off second-best, so he arose from his half-finished meal and stamped out, banging the door after him, and muttering something about “a disgustingly spoilt and petted tomboy”, “a hideous barbarian”, and so forth.