The amazing youth had actually constructed an electrical timing device. He explained it to Charles. When the wheels of his juggernaut touched the first strip, just inside the gates of the drive, an electrical impulse started the stop-watch moving; when he ran across the second, another impulse stopped it. He must have been working since the first streak of day. What chance had Hutchins against this?

‘Just stand over here and keep the watch lying flat on the board. The thing’s fool-proof,’ said Walter kindly. ‘I shall keep inside the gates, so no one can say I’ve driven on the public roads without a licence. Everything above board, that’s my motto.’

He walked over to his machine.

‘Just a minute,’ said Charles in alarm. ‘Do you mean you’re going to rush along the drive in that thing with me timing you?’

Walter nodded.

‘But it’s absolutely impossible. You’ll kill yourself when you run into the yard at full tilt.’

‘Not on your life. The braking’ll stand it.’

Charles shook his head.

‘Walter, I ought to tell you I was in hospital myself once with the kind of injuries you’re going to get. It wasn’t nice.’

‘Oh, God,’ said the youth wearily. ‘Look, if it’ll make any difference to your state of mind, we’ll adopt safety measures. You open the garage doors—that’ll give me an escape route—and I’ll put my hat on.’

‘Your hat?’

He answered by taking out of his tool-box a huge red steel helmet, with the word ‘Norton’ stencilled across the front.

‘Oh, I give up, I give up,’ Charles groaned. He opened the garage doors, and turned round to see Walter fastening the strap under his chin. The immense steel cup reduced the face below it to a dwarfed mask. Circular metal shells contained the ears.

‘Come on, let’s get weaving,’ said Hutchins’s pupil, settling himself in the cockpit. The steering wheel pushed into his abdomen. Charles had visions of horrible injuries.

‘You wouldn’t care to leave a signed statement that I warned you not to do it?’ he asked, with desperation in his voice.

‘Oh, rats to all that. Push me off and let’s get some practice in. It’s nearly half-past eight already, and I’ve got a spell with my tutor at ten.’

Charles bent and pushed. Silently, except for an occasional sibilant squelching noise from the engine, they crawled down the drive.

‘Hell, what’s happened now?’

‘Just a couple of blood-vessels,’ Charles panted, throwing himself down in the long grass.

Walter climbed out and began to burrow in the engine. ‘That ought to do it,’ he said after a moment. ‘Let’s try again.’

They tried three times more, and finally, at the cost of as many years of Charles’s life, the engine began to bray loudly.