"Going back to its family of eggs per express waddle! Whiz! Pst--and all its eggs and waddles were over! By Jove, how we screamed! Ha--ha--ha!--he--he--he!" Lord Wrotham's laugh resembled that laugh peculiar to "society" folk,--the laugh civil-sniggering, which is just a tone between the sheep's bleat and the peewit's cry.

But no one laughed in response, and no one spoke.

Some heavy spell was in the air like a cloud shadowing a landscape, and an imaginative onlooker would have been inclined to think that this imperceptible mystic darkness had come in with Tom o' the Gleam and was centralising itself round him alone.

Brookfield, seeing that his lordly patron was inclined to talk, and that he was evidently anxious to narrate various "car" incidents, similar to the hen episode, took up the conversation and led it on.
"It is really quite absurd," he said, "for any one of common sense to argue that a motorist can, could, or should pull up every moment for the sake of a few stray animals, or even people, when they don't seem to know or care where they are going.

Now think of that child to-day! What an absolute little idiot! Gathering wild thyme and holding it out to the car going full speed! No wonder we knocked it over!" The hostess of the inn looked up quickly.
"I hope it was not hurt ?" she said.
"Oh dear no!" answered Lord Wrotham lightly.