age, a woodstack on his back. Heavier even than a knapsack containing a
spirit kettle and a Decameron and biscuit remainders in a paper bag, it
must be. Peter watched the slow figure sympathetically. Would he sway and
topple over; and if he did would the woodstack break his fall? The whisky
flask stood ready on Peter's left.

Peter stopped whistling to watch; then he became aware that once more the
hidden distances were jarring and humming. He sat upright, and waited; a
little space of listening, then once again the sungod's chariot stormed
into the morning.

Peter watched it grow in size. How extremely fortunate.... Even though
one was again, as usual, found collapsed and absurd.

The woodstack pursued its slow advance. The music from Tchaichowsky
admonished it, as a matter of form, from far off, then sharply,
summarily, from a lessening distance. The woodstack was puzzled, vaguely
worried. It stopped, dubiously moved to one side, and pursued its
cautious way a little uncertainly.

Urquhart, without his chauffeur this time, was driving over the
speed-limit, Peter perceived. He usually did. But he ought to slacken
his pace now, or he would miss Peter by the wall. He was nearing the
woodstack, just going to pass it, with a clear two yards between. It was
not his doing: it was the woodstack that suddenly lessened the distance,
lurching over it, taking the middle of the road.

Peter cried, "Oh, don't--oh, _don't_," idiotically, sprawling on hands
and knees.