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for—as it seemed to the doctor—the better
part of a minute. Beads of perspiration appeared upon his brow and ran
together; he bared his teeth in a snarl; his hat slipped over one eye.
He groaned with rage. Then, using the starting handle as a club, he
assailed the car. He smote the brazen Mercury from its foothold and sent
it and a part of the radiator cap with it flying across the road. He
beat at the wings of the bonnet, until they bent in under his blows.
Finally, he hurled the starting-handle at the wind-screen and smashed
it. The starting-handle rattled over the bonnet and fell to the
ground....
    The paroxysm was over. Ten seconds later this cataclysmal lunatic had
reverted to sanity—a rather sheepish sanity.
    He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets and turned his back on the
car. He remarked in a voice of melancholy detachment: "It was a mistake
to bring that coupe."
    Dr. Martineau had assumed an attitude of trained observation on the side
path. His hands rested on his hips and his hat was a little on one
side. He was inclined to agree with Sir Richmond. "I don't know," he
considered. "You wanted some such blow-off as this."
    "Did I?"
    "The energy you have! That car must be somebody's whipping boy."
    "The devil it is!" said Sir Richmond, turning round sharply and staring
at it as if he expected it to display some surprising and yet familiar
features. Then he looked questioningly and suspiciously at his
companion.
    "These outbreaks do nothing to amend the originating grievance," said
the doctor. "No. And at times they are even costly. But they certainly
lift a burthen from the nervous system.... And now I suppose we have to
get that little ruin to Maidenhead."
    "Little ruin!" repeated Sir Richmond. "No. There's lots of life in the
little beast yet."
    He reflected. "She'll have to be towed." He felt in his breast pocket.
"Somewhere I have the R.A.C. order paper, the Badge that will Get
You Home. We shall have to hail some passing car to take it into
Maidenhead."
    Dr. Martineau offered and Sir Richmond took and lit a cigarette.
    For a little while conversation hung fire. Then for the first time Dr.
Martineau heard his patient laugh.
    "Amazing savage," said Sir Richmond. "Amazing savage!"
    He pointed to his handiwork. "The little car looks ruffled. Well it
may."
    He became grave again. "I suppose I ought to apologize."
    Dr. Martineau weighed the situation. "As between doctor and patient,"
he said. "No."
    "Oh!" said Sir Richmond, turned to a new point of view. "But where the
patient ends and the host begins.... I'm really very sorry." He reverted
to his original train of thought which had not concerned Dr. Martineau
at all. "After all, the little car was only doing what she was made to
do."
Section 2
    The affair of the car effectively unsealed Sir Richmond's mind. Hitherto
Dr. Martineau had perceived the possibility and danger of a defensive
silence or of a still more defensive irony; but now that Sir Richmond
had once given himself away, he seemed prepared to give himself away to
an unlimited extent. He embarked upon an apologetic discussion of the
choleric temperament.
    He began as they stood waiting for the relief car from the Maidenhead
garage. "You were talking of the ghosts of apes and monkeys that
suddenly come out from the darkness of the subconscious...."
    "You mean—when we first met at Harley Street?"
    "That last apparition of mine seems to have been a gorilla at least."
    The doctor became precise. "Gorillaesque. We are not descended from
gorillas."
    "Queer thing a fit of rage is!"
    "It's one of nature's cruder expedients. Crude, but I doubt if it is
fundamental. There doesn't seem to be rage in the vegetable world, and
even among the animals—? No, it is not universal." He ran his mind over
classes and orders. "Wasps and bees certainly seem to rage, but if one
comes to think, most of the invertebrata show very few signs of it."
    "I'm not so sure," said Sir Richmond. "I've never seen a snail in