I subsided first on the hedge, and then very gently on a bower of nettles. As I scrambled to my feet a hand took me by the arm, and a sympathetic and badly scared voice asked me if I were hurt.

I found myself looking at a tall young man in goggles and a leather ulster, who kept on blessing his soul and whinnying apologies. For myself, once I got my wind back, I was rather glad than otherwise. This was one way of getting rid of the car.

‘My blame, Sir,’ I answered him. ‘It’s lucky that I did not add homicide to my follies. That’s the end of my Scotch motor tour, but it might have been the end of my life.’

He plucked out a watch and studied it. ‘You’re the right sort of fellow,’ he said. ‘I can spare a quarter of an hour, and my house is two minutes off. I’ll see you clothed and fed and snug in bed. Where’s your kit, by the way? Is it in the burn along with the car?’

‘It’s in my pocket,’ I said, brandishing a toothbrush. ‘I’m a Colonial and travel light.’

‘A Colonial,’ he cried. ‘By Gad, you’re the very man I’ve been praying for. Are you by any blessed chance a Free Trader?’

‘I am,’ said I, without the foggiest notion of what he meant.

He patted my shoulder and hurried me into his car. Three minutes later we drew up before a comfortable-looking shooting box set among pine-trees, and he ushered me indoors. He took me first to a bedroom and flung half a dozen of his suits before me, for my own had been pretty well reduced to rags. I selected a loose blue serge, which differed most conspicuously from my former garments, and borrowed a linen collar. Then he haled me to the dining-room, where the remnants of a meal stood on the table, and announced that I had just five minutes to feed. ‘You can take a snack in your pocket, and we’ll have supper when we get back. I’ve got to be at the Masonic Hall at eight o’clock, or my agent will comb my hair.’

I had a cup of coffee and some cold ham, while he yarned away on the hearth-rug.

‘You find me in the deuce of a mess, Mr—by-the-by, you haven’t told me your name. Twisdon? Any relation of old Tommy Twisdon of the Sixtieth? No? Well, you see I’m Liberal Candidate for this part of the world, and I had a meeting on tonight at Brattleburn—that’s my chief town, and an infernal Tory stronghold. I had got the Colonial ex-Premier fellow, Crumpleton, coming to speak for me tonight, and had the thing tremendously billed and the whole place ground-baited. This afternoon I had a wire from the ruffian saying he had got influenza at Blackpool, and here am I left to do the whole thing myself. I had meant to speak for ten minutes and must now go on for forty, and, though I’ve been racking my brains for three hours to think of something, I simply cannot last the course. Now you’ve got to be a good chap and help me. You’re a Free Trader and can tell our people what a wash-out Protection is in the Colonies. All you fellows have the gift of the gab—I wish to Heaven I had it. I’ll be for evermore in your debt.’

I had very few notions about Free Trade one way or the other, but I saw no other chance to get what I wanted. My young gentleman was far too absorbed in his own difficulties to think how odd it was to ask a stranger who had just missed death by an ace and had lost a 1,000-guinea car to address a meeting for him on the spur of the moment. But my necessities did not allow me to contemplate oddnesses or to pick and choose my supports.

‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’m not much good as a speaker, but I’ll tell them a bit about Australia.’

At my words the cares of the ages slipped from his shoulders, and he was rapturous in his thanks.