As he went towards Culmhayes in the gathering dusk, he met a frantically-bicycling figure violently urging forward a machine that was devoid of lights.
"Fuller!"
"Sir Julian?"
Fairfax Fuller came to attention, as it were, with a promptitude that nearly sent him over his handle-bars head foremost.
"You had better not go through Culmouth at that rate and without a light, surely?" said Sir Julian mildly. "Can I give you a match?"
"Are my lamps out?" enquired Mr. Fuller negligently.
Sir Julian felt convinced that they had never been lit, but he handed the Supervisor a box of matches without observation.
"Thank you, Sir Julian. The fact is," said Fuller, with an air of candour, "that I'm upset and I hardly know what I'm doing."
"What's wrong?"
"This resignation," elliptically said the Supervisor.