‘How are you finding the old carriage?’ he jerked his thumb at the Daimler. ‘Deadly bore, eh? Nought to twenty in five minutes.’ He laughed loudly, then suddenly became serious. ‘Look!’ he said, swiftly moving over and dragging open the bonnet, ‘I’ve been thinking of one or two things we could do to increase per­formance. It ought to be the simplest thing on earth to get the compression ratio up by about two-thirds. And see the position of that jet? Possibilities there, you know.’

‘Before we go into it in more detail,’ said Charles, able to speak at last, ‘could you just clear up one point for me? Just who the hell are you?’

The young man laughed.

‘Of course, I was forgetting. You wouldn’t know. I’m—’

‘Walter,’ said Mr. Braceweight’s voice from behind them in a tone Charles had never heard him use before, ‘is this thing yours?’ He had come round from the garden to investigate the noise made by the motor-cycle.

The young man turned and began talking with a false eagerness, like a salesman making an all-out effort on someone who never buys.

‘That’s right, Daddy. I didn’t think your ban would apply to this, as it was such a soundly constructed—’

‘I told you no motor-cycle and I meant no motor-cycle,’ said Mr. Braceweight stonily.

‘Yes, but you see—’

‘I thought I had made myself perfectly plain.’

‘Well, yes, of course, but when I had a chance of a good thing like this, solid as a rock—you see there’s no danger with a thing like—’

‘I don’t want the details. This is not what your allowance is given you for.’

‘—telescopics, you see here, and—’

‘I don’t see anything to discuss, Walter.’

‘—graphite lubrication—all perfectly—’

Mr. Braceweight had turned and gone into the house.

Walter turned to Charles. The confidence had gone from his bearing, being replaced by half-comical ruefulness. The large circular white patches round his eyes, where his goggles had kept off the dust and oil, enhanced the effect by giving him the look of a Walt Disney animal.

‘Drat it. I might have known it was fatal to bring it down here. Ought to have kept it at school, or in the village, rather. No motor-bikes, that was the decree on my sixteenth birthday. Some crazy idea that they’re dangerous. Hell, I can’t go another six months without any form of motoring at all.’

Charles was still trying to get a grip on the situation.

‘Forgive my obtuseness,’ he said, ‘but I’ve been used to a quiet life lately. I’ve let myself get out of touch with the march of events and it’s made me so that I can only take in one fact at a time. To get this straight—your name is Walter and I heard you call my employer Daddy, which means you’re his son.’

‘Yes.’