The worst thing of all was the lamp-post, bent, moveless, unnatural,
atrociously comic, accusing him.

The affair was over the town in a minute; the next morning it reached
Llandudno. Ellis Carter had been out on the spree with _a Wakes girl_ in
a dogcart on Sunday afternoon, and had got into such a condition that he
had driven into a lamp-post at the top of Oldcastle Street just as
people were going into chapel.

The lamp-post remained bent for three days--a fearful warning to all
dogs that doggishness has limits.

If it had not been a dogcart, and such a high, green dogcart; if it had
been, say, a brougham, or even a cab! If it had not been Sunday! And,
granting Sunday, if it had not been just as people were going into
chapel! If he had not chosen that particular lamp-post, visible both
from the market-place and St. Luke's Square! If he had only contrived to
destroy a less obtrusive lamp-post in some unfrequented street! And if
it had not been a Wakes girl--if the reprobate had only selected for his
guilty amours an actress from one of the touring companies, or even a
star from the Hanbridge Empire--yea, or even a local barmaid! But _a
Wakes girl_!

Ellis himself saw the enormity of his transgression. He lay awake
astounded by his own doggishness.

And yet he had seldom felt less doggy than during that trip. It seemed
to him that doggishness was not the glorious thing he had thought.
However, he cut a heroic figure at the dogs' club. Every admiring face