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Tietjens said:

'God damn you, you bloody swine. Go away!'

The apparition, past the horse's blinkers, said:

'I can, at least, hold the horse for you. I went past to get you out of Claudine's sight.'

'Damn good-natured of you,' Tietjens said as rudely as he could. 'You'll have to pay for the horse.'

The General exclaimed:

'Damn it all! Why should I? You were driving your beastly camel right into my drive.'

'You never sounded your horn,' Tietjens said.

'I was on private ground,' the General shouted. 'Besides I did.' An enraged, scarlet scarecrow, very thin, he was holding the horse's bridle. Tietjens was extending the half petticoat, with a measuring eye, before the horse's chest. The General said:

'Look here! I've got to take the escort for the Royal party at St Peter-in-Manor, Dover. They're laying the Buffs' colours on the altar or something.'

'You never sounded your horn,' Tietjens said. 'Why didn't you bring your chauffeur? He's a capable man...You talk very big about the widow and child. But when it comes to robbing them of fifty quid by slaughtering their horse...'

The General said:

'What the devil were you doing coming into our drive at five in the morning?'

Tietjens, who had applied the half petticoat to the horse's chest, exclaimed:

'Pick up that thing and give it to me.' A thin roll of linen was at his feet: it had rolled down from the hedge. 'Can I leave the horse?' the General asked.

'Of course you can,' Tietjens said. 'If I can't quiet a horse better than you can run a car...

He bound the new linen strips over the petticoat: the horse dropped its head, smelling his hand. The General, behind Tietjens, stood back on his heels, grasping his gold-mounted sword. Tietjens went on twisting and twisting the bandage.

'Look here,' the General suddenly bent forward to whisper into Tietjens' ear, 'what am I to tell Claudine? I believe she saw the girl.'

'Oh, tell her we came to ask what time you cast off your beastly otter hounds,' Tietjens said; 'that's a matutinal job...

The General's voice had a really pathetic intonation:

'On a Sunday!' he exclaimed. Then in a tone of relief he added: 'I shall tell her you were going to early communion in Duchemin's church at Pett.'

'If you want to add blasphemy to horse-slaughtering as a profession, do,' Tietjens said. 'But you'll have to pay for the horse.'

'I'm damned if I will,' the General shouted. 'I tell you you were driving into my drive.'

'Then I shall,' Tietjens said, 'and you know the construction you'll put on that.'

He straightened his back to look at the horse.

'Go away,' he said, 'say what you like. Do what you like! But as you go through Rye send up the horse ambulance from the vet.'s. Don't forget that. I'm going to save this horse...'

'You know, Chris,' the General said, 'you're the most wonderful hand with a horse...There isn't another man in England...

'I know it,' Tietjens said. 'Go away. And send up that ambulance...There's your sister getting out of your car...'

The General began:

'I've an awful lot to get explained...' But, at a thin scream of: 'General! General!' he pressed on his sword hilt to keep it from between his long, black, scarlet-striped legs, and running to the car pushed back into its door a befeathered, black bolster. He waved his hand to Tietjens:

'I'll send the ambulance,' he called.

The horse, its upper leg swathed with criss-crosses of white through which a purple stain was slowly penetrating, stood motionless, its head hanging down, mule-like, under the blinding sun. To ease it Tietjens began to undo the trace. The girl hopped over the hedge and, scrambling down, began to help him.

'Well. My reputation's gone,' she said cheerfully. 'I know what Lady Claudine is...Why did you try to quarrel with the General?...

'Oh, you'd better,' Tietjens said wretchedly, 'have a lawsuit with him. It'll account for...for your not going to Mountby...'

'You think of everything,' she said.

They wheeled the cart