The crisis passed. Bolt swallowed convulsively and was himself once more. One must be patient, he realized, with laymen. They do not understand. When they come to a chauffeur and calmly propose that their vile hands shall touch his sacred steering-wheel they are not trying to be deliberately offensive. It is simply that they do not know.
"I'm afraid that wouldn't quite do, sir," he said with a faint, reproving smile.
"Do you think I can't drive?"
"Not the Dex-Mayo you can't, sir." Bolt spoke a little curtly, for he had been much moved and was still shaken. "Mr. Carmody don't like nobody handling his car but me."
"But I must go over to Healthward Ho. It's important. Business."
The chauffeur reflected. Fundamentally he was a kindly man, who liked to do his Good Deed daily.
"Well, sir, there's an old push-bike of mine lying in the stables. You could take that if you liked. It's a little rusty, not having been used for some time, but I dare say it would carry you as far as Healthward Ho."
Soapy hesitated for a moment. The thought of a twenty-mile journey on a machine which he had always supposed to have become obsolete during his knickerbocker days made him quail a little. Then the thought of his mission lent him strength. He was a desperate man, and desperate men must do desperate things.
"Fetch it out!" he said.
Bolt fetched it out, and Soapy, looking upon it, quailed again.