twenty miles an hour with a clear straight road ahead."

Mr. Taynton sighed, gently and not unhappily.

"Yes, yes, my dear boy, I so sympathise with you," he said. "Speed and
violence is the proper attitude of youth, just as strength with a more
measured pace is the proper gait for older folk. And that, I fancy is
just what Mrs. Assheton felt. She would feel it to be as unnatural in you
to care to drive with her in her very comfortable victoria as she would
feel it to be unnatural in herself to wish to go in your lightning speed
motor. And that reminds me. As your trustee--"

Coffee was brought in at this moment, carried, not by one of the discreet
parlour-maids, but by a young man-servant. Mr. Taynton, with the port
still by him, refused it, but looked rather curiously at the servant.
Morris however mixed himself a cup in which cream, sugar, and coffee were
about equally mingled.

"A new servant of your mother's?" he asked, when the man had left the
room.

"Oh no. It's my man, Martin. Awfully handy chap. Cleans silver, boots and
the motor. Drives it, too, when I'll let him, which isn't very often.
Chauffeurs are such rotters, aren't they? Regular chauffeurs I mean. They
always make out that something is wrong with the car, just as dentists
always find some hole in your teeth, if you go to them."

Mr. Taynton did not reply to these critical generalities but went back
to what he had been saying when the entry of coffee interrupted him.