"Are these things necessities?
Then let us meet them like necessities."
"You may be surprised to learn that a sailor knows his Shakespeare,
but I read a play every voyage, and so I recognize that great speech
of the king. But the question is are these things necessities? I
say no. Machinery must be, and I believe will be, invented to do the
work which no self-respecting man ought to be asked to do habitually.
Some day we shall have great vacuum cleaners to do such work, and
then you will have your docks and streets as clean as ours, and at
half the price."
I should like to have had more talk with this intelligent young
officer, but the car was now ready, so the chauffeur and I took our
places on the front seat.
At that moment a wretched specimen of the casual laborer appeared,
and, touching his greasy cap, inquired: "Shall I wind her up,
Guv'ner?" I nodded and he stooped down to find the handle. Then he
looked up with a grin, remarking: "You 'ave fergot the 'andle, sir!"
Meanwhile I had touched the self-starter; the little electric engine
had begun to hum, there was a click and the car glided away. I
tossed the poor wretch a shilling, but he was too astonished to say
"Thank you." He simply exclaimed, in a dazed way, "Well, I'm
damned!" There was a cheer from the bystanders, and we slipped
through the gate and turned toward London.
The chauffeur took the wheel, and of course the talk turned upon
cars. He admitted that the American cars were "smart" and
wonderfully cheap, but declared that they could not compare with
English cars in durability. "They tell me that at the end of a year
you American gentlemen turn in your cars, at a great loss, and get a
new one in exchange. But an English car will be as good after five
years as this will be at the end of one. So, I do not see there is
much saved."
I said we found it cheaper to scrap an old machine than to run up a
bill for repairs.
He replied: "That may be, because wages are so high, but in the long
run the American car is the more expensive."
"But you must remember," I replied, "that every year there are
improvements."
But he shrewdly remarked: "There are changes; I do not know that they
are always improvements."
It was fascinating to watch this skilful driver thread his way
through the traffic; so well did he manage that in a much shorter
time than I had supposed would be possible, we reached the garage, in
a street not far from Leicester Square.
There were things enough still to do to occupy the rest of the
day--the grease, with which the brass work had been smeared to
protect it _en route_, removed, the car cleaned and polished, and the
batteries filled with distilled water, which could be obtained only
from a "chemist," and all valves and bolts tested. Then there were
last purchases to be made, to insure comfort in a climate in which,
even in summer, the American shivers like a Mexican hairless dog! So
it was not till the next afternoon that, the chauffeur still driving,
we started on our great adventure.