Half-way down was the Post Office, and on the steps of it stood the postmistress and a policeman hard at work conning a telegram.

When they saw me they wakened up, and the policeman advanced with raised hand, and cried on me to stop.
I nearly was fool enough to obey.

Then it flashed upon me that the wire had to do with me; that my friends at the inn had come to an understanding, and were united in desiring to see more of me, and that it had been easy enough for them to wire the description of me and the car to thirty villages through which I might pass.

I released the brakes just in time.

As it was, the policeman made a claw at the hood, and only dropped off when he got my left in his eye.
I saw that main roads were no place for me, and turned into the byways.
It wasn't an easy job without a map, for there was the risk of getting on to a farm road and ending in a duck-pond or a stable-yard, and I couldn't afford that kind of delay.