'I don't want to know the way to Old Inns,' he said desperately. 'Where
I want to get is Anfield. Anfield, you know. Which way do I go?'

'Anfield?' said the man. Then a brilliant flash of intelligence
illumined his countenance. 'Whoy, Anfield be same road as Old Inns.
Yeou go straight down the road, an'--'

'Thanks very much,' said Gethryn, and without waiting for further
revelations shot off in the direction indicated. A quarter of a mile
farther he looked over his shoulder. The man was still there, gazing
after him in a kind of trance.

The Bishop passed through Old Inns with some way on his machine. He had
much lost time to make up. A signpost bearing the legend 'Anfield four
miles' told him that he was nearing his destination. The notice had
changed to three miles and again to two, when suddenly he felt that
jarring sensation which every cyclist knows. His back tyre was
punctured. It was impossible to ride on. He got off and walked. He was
still in his cricket clothes, and the fact that he had on spiked boots
did not make walking any the easier. His progress was not rapid.

Half an hour before his one wish had been to catch sight of a
fellow-being. Now, when he would have preferred to have avoided his
species, men seemed to spring up from nowhere, and every man of them
had a remark to make or a question to ask about the punctured tyre.
Reserve is not the leading characteristic of the average yokel.

Gethryn, however, refused to be drawn into conversation on the subject.
At last one, more determined than the rest, brought him to bay.