“Perfectly,” said Mr. Prohack.

Carthew sat silent.

“But it’s a very good car.  Nobody could wish for a better.  I’ll say that,” he added at length.

“Had many accidents in your time?”

“I’ve been touched, sir, but I’ve never touched anything myself.  You can have an accident while you’re drawn up alongside the kerb.  It rather depends on how many fools have been let loose in the traffic, doesn’t it, sir, if you understand what I mean.”

“Exactly,” said Mr. Prohack.

Carthew sat silent.

“I gather you’ve been through the war,” Mr. Prohack began again.

“I was in the first Territorial regiment that landed in France, and I got my discharge July 1919.”

“Wounded?”

“Well, sir, I’ve been blown up twice and buried once and pitched into the sea once, but nothing ever happened to me.”

“I see you don’t wear any ribbons.”

“It’s like this, sir.  I’ve seen enough ribbons on chests since the armistice.  It isn’t as if I was one of them conscripts.”

“No,” murmured Mr. Prohack thoughtfully; then brightening:  “And as soon as you were discharged you went back to your old job?”

“I did and I didn’t, sir.  The fact is, I’ve been driving an ambulance for the City of London, but as soon as I heard of something private I chucked that.  I can’t say as I like these Corporations.  There’s a bit too much stone wall about them Corporations, for my taste.”

“Family man?” asked Mr. Prohack lightly.  “I’ve two children myself and both of them can drive.”

“Really, sir, I am a family man, as ye might say, but my wife and me, we’re best apart.”

“Sorry to hear that.  I didn’t want to—­”

“Oh, not at all, sir!  That’s all right.  But you see—­the war—­me being away and all that—­I’ve got the little boy.  He’s nine.”

“Well,” said Mr. Prohack, jumping up nervously, “suppose we go and have a look at the car, shall we?”

“Certainly, sir,” said Carthew, throwing the end of his cigarette into the fender, and hastening.

“My dove,” said Mr. Prohack to his wife in the hall.  “I congratulate you on your taste in chauffeurs.  Carthew and I have laid the foundations of a lasting friendship.”

“I really wonder you asked him to smoke in the drawing-room,” Mrs. Prohack critically observed.

“Why?  He saved England for me; and now I’m trusting my life to him.”

“I do believe you’d like there to be a revolution in this country.”

“Not at all, angel!  And I don’t think there’ll be one.  But I’m taking my precautions in case there should be one.”

“He’s only a chauffeur.”

“That’s very true.  He was doing some useful work, driving an ambulance to hospitals.  But we’ve stopped that.  He’s now only a chauffeur to the idle rich.”

“Oh, Arthur!  I wish you wouldn’t try to be funny on such subjects.  You know you don’t mean it.”