Hunger—­Mr. Prohack’s hunger—­drew them up at Frating, a village a few miles short of Colchester.  The inn at Frating had been constructed ages earlier entirely without reference to the fact that it is improper for certain different types of humanity to eat or drink in each other’s presence.  In brief, there was obviously only one dining-room, and not a series of dining-rooms classified according to castes.  Mr. Prohack, free, devil-may-care and original, said to his chauffeur: 

“You’d better eat with me, Carthew.”

“You’re very kind, sir,” said Carthew, and at once sat down and ceased to be a chauffeur.

“Well, I haven’t been seeing much of you lately,” Mr. Prohack edged forward into the fringes of intimacy when three glasses of beer and three slices of Derby Round had been unequally divided between them, “have I?”

“No, sir.”

Mr. Prohack had in truth been seeing Carthew almost daily; but on this occasion he used the word “see” in a special sense.

“That boy of yours getting on all right?”

“Pretty fair, considering he’s got no mother, if you understand what I mean, sir,” replied Carthew, pushing back his chair, stretching out his legs, and picking his teeth with a fork.

“Ah! yes!” said Mr. Prohack commiseratingly.  “Very awkward situation for you, that is.”

“It isn’t awkward for me, sir.  It’s my boy it’s awkward for.  I’m as right as rain.”

“No chance of the lady coming back, I suppose?”

“Well, she’d better not try,” said Carthew grimly.

“But does this mean you’ve done with the sex, at your age?” cried Mr. Prohack.

“I don’t say as I’ve done with the sex, sir.  Male and female created He them, as the good old Book says; and I’m not going behind that.  No, not me!  All I say is, I’m as right as rain—­for the present—­and she’d better not try.”

“I bet you anything you won’t keep it up,” said Mr. Prohack, impetuously exceeding the limits of inter-caste decorum.

“Keep what up?”

“This attitude of yours.”

“I won’t bet, sir,” said Carthew.  “Because nobody can see round a corner.  But I promise you I’ll never take a woman seriously again.  That’s the mistake we make, taking ’em seriously.  You see, sir, being a chauffeur in the early days of motor-cars, I’ve had a tidy bit of experience, if you understand what I mean.  Because in them days a chauffeur was like what an air-pilot is to-day.  He didn’t have to ask, he didn’t.  And what I say is this—­I say we’re mugs to take ’em seriously.”

“You think we are!” bubbled Mr. Prohack emptily, perceiving that he had to do with an individual whom misfortune had rendered impervious to argument.

“I do, sir.  And what’s more, I say you never know where you are with any woman.”

“That I agree with,” said Mr. Prohack, with a polite show of eagerness.  “But you’re cutting yourself off from a great deal you know, Carthew,” he added, thinking magnificently upon his adventure with Lady Massulam.