responded with some base flattery, though by this time that smile of
mine was so hard you could have knocked it off with a hammer.

"The first day I went through traffic," she continued, "my toes had
the funniest sensation, as if they were turning up in my shoes. One
seemed to come so awfully _near_ everything, without any horses in
front."

At this very moment my own toes happened to feel as if they were
pasted back on my insteps; yet I laughed heartily at the suggestion,
and to my critical ear there was only a slight hollowness in the ring,
although before us now loomed a huge railway van. It was loaded with
iron bars, their rusty ends hanging far out and sagging towards the
roadway, enough to frighten the gentlest automobile. Ours seemed far
from gentle, and besides, we could not possibly stop in time to avoid
impalement on the iron spikes. Molly and I, if not Jack and the
chauffeur, must surely die a peculiarly unpleasant and unnecessary
death, in the morning of our lives, just as other more fortunate
people were starting out, safe and happy in exquisitely beautiful
omnibuses, to begin their day's pleasure. And Molly believed, because
I had been in a few battles, with nothing worse than a bee-like
buzzing of some innocent bullets in my ears, that I should be callous
in a motor car.

However, the bravest soldiers are those who feel fear, and fight
despite it. I maintain that I deserved a Victoria Cross for the grim
smile which did not leave my lips as I braced myself for the
death-dealing blow. But, as in a dream one finds without surprise that
the precipice, over which one is hanging by an eyebrow, obligingly
transforms itself into a bank of violets, so did the dragon which had