“‘It’s a blinkin’ day-dream,” returned Joe, forcing the car to an expiring spurt.

“If she gets to that ’ill before we ketch ’er, we’re done; the old geyser can’t ’alf crawl up ’ills.”

“We’re gaining,” shrieked Mr. Lavender; “I can see her tongue.”

As though it heard his voice, the car leaped forward and stopped with a sudden and most formidable jerk; the door burst open, and Mr. Lavender fell out upon his sheep-dog.

Fortunately they were in the only bed of nettles in that part of the world, and its softness and that of Blink assuaged the severity of his fall, yet it was some minutes before he regained the full measure of his faculties.  He came to himself sitting on a milestone, with his dog on her hind legs between his knees, licking his face clean, and panting down his throat.

“Joe,” he said; “where are you”?

The voice of Joe replied from underneath the car:  “Here sir.  She’s popped.”

“Do you mean that our journey is arrested?”

“Ah!  We’re in irons.  You may as well walk ’ome, sir.  It ain’t two miles.

“No! no!” said Mr. Lavender.  “We passed the Garden City a little way back; I could go and hold a meeting.  How long will you be?”

“A day or two,” said Joe.

Mr. Lavender sighed, and at this manifestation of his grief his sheep-dog redoubled her efforts to comfort him.  “Nothing becomes one more than the practice of philosophy,” he thought.  “I always admired those great public men who in moments of national peril can still dine with a good appetite.  We will sit in the car a little, for I have rather a pain, and think over a speech.”  So musing he mounted the car, followed by his dog, and sat down in considerable discomfort.

“What subject can I choose for a Garden City?” he thought, and remembering that he had with him the speech of a bishop on the subject of babies, he dived into his bundle of literature, and extracting a pamphlet began to con its periods.  A sharp blow from a hammer on the bottom of the car just below where Blink was sitting caused him to pause and the dog to rise and examine her tiny tail.

“Curious,” thought Mr. Lavender dreamily, “how Joe always does the right thing in the wrong place.  He is very English.”  The hammering continued, and the dog, who traced it to the omnipotence of her master, got up on the seat where she could lick his face.  Mr. Lavender was compelled to stop.

“Joe,” he said, leaning out and down; “must you?”

The face of Joe, very red, leaned out and up.  “What’s the matter now, sir?”

“I am preparing a speech; must you hammer?”

“No,” returned Joe, “I needn’t.”

“I don’t wish you to waste your time,” said Mr Lavender.

“Don’t worry about that, sir,” replied Joe; “there’s plenty to do.”

“In that case I shall be glad to finish my speech.”

Mr. Lavender resumed his seat and Blink her position on the floor, with her head on his feet.  The sound of his voice soon rose again in the car like the buzzing of large flies. “’If we are to win this war we must have an ever-increasing population.  In town and countryside, in the palace and the slum, above all in the Garden City, we must have babies.’”