The incident occupied barely half a minute. Templeton recovered himself, stopped his engine, rammed on his brakes, and, least bemired of all the actors, got down to make his apologies.  Eves and O’Reilly by this time were shaking with laughter.  Noakes, seeing that the machine had come to a stop, approached the contrite driver with uplifted fist, too irate even to speak.  He had tried to rub the splashes of mud from his cheeks, with the result that he had only spread them.