Erebus kept behind Wiggins; and they rode on.

The car was overhauling them rapidly, but not so rapidly as it would have done had not Mr.D'Arcy Rosenheimer, who lacked the courage of his famous grenadier ancestors, been in it.

He was howling at his straining chauffeur to go slower.
Nevertheless at the end of a mile and a half the car was less than fifty yards behind them; and then a figure came into sight swinging briskly along.
"It's your father!" gasped Erebus.
It was, indeed, the higher mathematician.
As they reached him, they flung themselves off their bicycles; and Erebus cried: "Wiggins hasn't been poaching at all! It was the Terror!" "Was it, indeed ?" said Mr.Carrington calmly.
On his words the car was on them; and as it came to a dead stop Mr.
D'Arcy Rosenheimer tumbled clumsily out of it.
"I've got you, you liddle devil!" he bellowed triumphantly, but quite incorrectly; and he rushed at Wiggins who stepped discreetly behind his father.
"What's the matter ?" said Mr.Carrington.
The excited young Pomeranian Briton, taking in his age and size at a single glance, shoved him aside with splendid violence.

Mr.Carrington seemed to step lightly backward and forward in one movement; his left arm shot out; and there befell Mr.D'Arcy Rosenheimer what, in the technical terms affected by the fancy, is described as "an uppercut on the point which put him to sleep." He fell as falls a sack of potatoes, and lay like a log.
The keeper had just disengaged himself from the car and hurried forward.
"Do you want some too, my good man ?" said Mr.Carrington in his most agreeable tone, keeping his guard rather low.
The keeper stopped short and looked down, with a satisfaction he made no effort to hide, at the body of his stricken employer which lay between them.
"I can't say as I do, sir," he said civilly; and he backed away.
"Then perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me the name of this hulking young blackguard who assaults quiet elderly gentlemen, taking constitutionals, in this most unprovoked and wanton fashion," said the higher mathematician in the same agreeable tone.
"Assaults?
--'Im assault ?--Yes, sir; it's Mr.D'Arcy Rosenheimer, of Great Deeping Court, sir," said the keeper respectfully.
"Then tell Mr.D'Arcy Rosenheimer, when he recovers the few wits he looks to have, with my compliments, that he will some time this evening be summoned for assault.

Good afternoon," said Mr.Carrington, and he turned on his heel.
The keeper and the chauffeur stooped over the body of their young employer.