There were too few of them for Hide-and-Seek. They decided just to “crash around a bit.” Maurice got into Currie’s Sunbeam with Farncombe and Hughes. Gerald Ramsbotham had Moody with him.

“Where shall we go?” asked Gerald.

“There and back,” said Maurice.

Off they went, flashing round the corner by the church, catching a glimpse of the Proctor and his Bullers coming up towards the Theatre—Maurice waved to him—past the station, out into the darkness.

The Sunbeam had guts, but it soon became obvious that Currie wasn’t a very experienced driver. He was nervous when Gerald brought his car abreast and they raced down the road doing close on sixty. Maurice shouted and screamed with joy. Farncombe told him not to make such a filthy row:

“They’ll think we’re a girls’ school coming home from a picnic.”

They struck into side lanes, twisted and turned, until Currie said that he was quite lost. But Maurice and Gerald knew the way. They knew the country for miles round.

Swinging into a main road, they found an A.A. box. There was nobody there. Maurice had a key and wanted to ring up Jimmy. He would have done so if Farncombe and Hughes hadn’t dragged him away.

“You’re madder than usual to-night,” said Hughes.

When, presently, they were passing through a long straggling village where there were still several people about, Maurice suddenly scrambled out over the windscreen, opened the bonnet and got hold of the accelerator control. He waggled it up and down. The car moved forward in a series of bounds. At the end of the village was a right-angle turn and a high arched bridge. When they reached it, Maurice opened the car full out. They skidded round the corner somehow and did a jump—it was a marvel how the back axle stood it—with Maurice clinging on like a monkey, his hair flying. Currie was scared, but he wouldn’t stop the engine. He tried to take it all as a joke. It was Farncombe who shouted out:

“You damned little fool!”

Maurice climbed back into the car, temporarily subdued:

“You’re not angry with me, are you, lovey?” he asked Currie.

“Do you imagine anyone’d waste their time,” said Farncombe, “being angry with a little twirt like you?”

“Come and sit in the back,” said Hughes, “where you’ll be out of mischief.”

So Maurice and Farncombe changed places. And presently Currie asked Farncombe if he’d like to drive. He was disappointed not to be sitting next to Maurice.

Soon Maurice had a new game. He fished an old plug out of his pocket and a coil of string. In another minute the plug was trailing out behind the car. They were leading. Maurice let out more and more string until the plug was bouncing along just in front of Gerald’s headlights. Gerald put on a spurt, trying to overtake it. Maurice, screaming with laughter, sat on the hood playing the plug, which bounded along, skidding from one side of the road to the other. Suddenly Hughes yelled: “Look out!” A cyclist was passing. The plug whizzed out and caught the spokes of the cyclist’s back wheel. Maurice let go of the string, but too late. The cyclist wobbled and nearly went under Gerald’s car—for Gerald had no time or room to swerve. Finally he collapsed, cursing, into the ditch. Gerald switched off all his lights, and they vanished round the corner.