"Hasn't it ever landed you in trouble?" asked Bundle, laughing.
"To be sure it has. Millions of times. But I'm still going strong. Sure, it'll take the hangman's noose to defeat Terence O'Rourke."
Just then Jimmy Thesiger strolled round the corner of the house.
"Bundle, by all that's wonderful!" he exclaimed.
"You've missed competing in the Autumn Meeting," said O'Rourke.
"I'd gone for a stroll," said Jimmy. "Where did these girls drop from?"
"We came on our flat feet," said Bundle. "The Hispano let us down."
And she narrated the circumstances of the breakdown.
Jimmy listened with sympathetic attention.
"Hard luck," he vouchsafed. "If it's going to take some time, I'll run you back in my car after lunch."