Somewhere in the further darkness a voice was muttering mild and
perplexed imprecations. Peter moved on the strong arm that was supporting
him and opened his eyes and looked on the world again. Between him and
the rosy morning, Rodney loomed large, pouring whisky into a flask.

It all seemed a very old and often-repeated tale. One could not do
anything; one could not even go a walking-tour: one could not (of this
one was quite sure) take whisky at this juncture without feeling horribly
sick. The only thing that occurred to Peter, in the face of the dominant
Rodney, was to say, "I'm a teetotaller." Rodney nodded and held the flask
to his lips. Rodney was looking rather worried.

Peter said presently, still at length in the dust, "I'm frightfully
sorry. I suppose I'm tired. Didn't we get up rather early and walk rather
fast?"

"I suppose," said Rodney, "you oughtn't to have come. What's wrong, you
rotter?"

Peter sat up, and there lay the road again, stretching and stretching
into the pink morning.

"Thirty kilometres to breakfast," murmured Peter. "And I don't know that
I want any, even then. Wrong?... Oh ... well, I suppose it's heart. I
have one, you know, of a sort. A nuisance, it's always been. Not
dangerous, but just in the way. I'm sorry, Rodney--I really am."

Rodney said again, "You absolute rotter. Why didn't you tell me? What in
the name of anything induced you to walk at all? You needn't have."