II
By eight o'clock on the morning of the Fête a pantechnicon was lumbering its ungainly way along the Portsmouth Road. Bindle sat meditatively on the tail-board, smoking and obviously bored.
With the wholesome contempt of an incorrigible cockney he contemplated the landscape.
"'Edges, trees, an' fields, an' a mile to walk for a drink. Not me," he muttered, relighting his pipe with solemn gravity.
As the pantechnicon rumbled its ponderous way through hamlet and village, Bindle lightly tossed a few pleasantries to the rustics who stood aside to gaze at what, to them, constituted an incident in the day's monotony of motor-cars and dust.
The morning advanced, and Bindle grew more direct in his criticisms on, and contempt for, the bucolic life. At last out of sheer loneliness he climbed up beside the driver.
"'Owd jer like to live 'ere, ole son?" he enquired pleasantly, as they approached a tiny hamlet where a woman, a child, and some ducks and chickens seemed to be the only living inhabitants.
"All right with a bit o' land," responded the driver, looking about him appreciatively.
Bindle gazed at his colleague curiously, then, feeling that they had nothing in common regarding the countryside, continued:
"Funny thing you an' me comin' to a temperance fête." Then regarding the driver's face critically, he proceeded: "'Ope you've got yer vanity-case wi' yer. You'll want to powder that nose o' yours 'fore the ladies come. Course it's indigestion, only they mightn't believe it."