'Then how did you get here?'
'That was the one stroke of luck I've had this afternoon. I started to walk back, and after I'd gone about a quarter of a mile, Adamson caught me up in his dog-cart. I suggested that it would be a Christian act on his part to give me a lift, and he did. I shall remember Adamson in my will.'
'Tell us what happened.'
'I'll tell thee everything I can,' said Charteris. 'There's little to relate. I saw an aged, aged man a-sitting on a gate. Where do you want me to begin?'
'At the beginning. Don't rot.'
'I was born,' began Charteris, 'of poor but honest parents, who sent me to school at an early age in order that I might acquire a grasp of the Greek and Latin languages, now obsolete. I—'
'How did you lose?' enquired the Babe.
'The other man beat me. If he hadn't, I should have won hands down. Oh, I say, guess who I met at Rutton.'
'Not a beak?'
'No. Almost as bad, though. The Bargee man who paced me from Stapleton. Man who crocked Tony.'