"ONE EVERY MINUTE"
The self-starter is again out of order! I found it cheaper to pay an
odd man a shilling each time I wanted to crank than to break my back,
which is what I did on our way to Barchester.
When we reached the hotel there, how different was our reception from
that which John had accorded us at the Waterloo! The strictly polite
and equally indifferent young woman at the desk seemed to think it
rather a bore to have us return to them! I hear there is an old
coaching inn in that town where they receive one as a friend, and if
I ever return to that ancient city I shall go there.
I took the car to the garage and asked the man in charge if he
thought he could find the trouble. He said the battery was run down!
Instead of saying what I thought, I politely remarked that that could
hardly be as I had it charged less than a week before in Dublin.
"Dublin!" he exclaimed contemptuously.
Well, there was nothing to do but to have it charged again--you know
they do not perform this service for nothing--and write to the
Frontenac Co., in London, telling them what I thought of this
invention which was to "revolutionize motoring."
Their answer was what was to have been expected. "Mine was the first
complaint they had received. Of course it was impossible to express
an opinion as to the cause of the trouble till they had examined the
car in their own shops in London, etc." There was a postscript, in
which the writer suggested that I might have misused the car and
ruined the mechanism, in which case it would be necessary to install
a new generator at a cost of about three hundred dollars!
This struck me as humorous, for by this time I was convinced that the
chauffeur in London who had said that all changes on American cars
were not improvements was right. How I wished I had one of those
well-balanced foreign cars, which start with a half turn of the
handle, instead of one of these new-fangled "Yankee notions," which
promise so much and are out of order half the time!
I was rather low in my mind as we sat in the garden after dinner and
discussed our plans. Should we go on to Scotland, as we had
intended, or should we sell the car for what it would bring, and buy
an English one, or should we give up and go on the Continent and
travel like other folk?
Ruth cried out at the thought of selling the car: "Why, I love it,"
she cried, and could not bear the thought of giving it up. "Surely
when the agent sees it he will be able to find the trouble--it really
may be something very simple, after all."
"If it were simple," I gloomily replied, "the professor would have
discovered it. He knows all there is to know about a motor."
"No," she answered, "it does not follow. You know how often you have
said the great specialists are so anxious to find some abnormal
disease that they often overlook the most common explanation. It may
be the same now."
Well, there was nothing that could be done till we reached London,
and thither we planned to start the next morning, or as soon as the
car was charged.
To cheer me up Ruth now told me of her conversation in this same
garden with the typical John Bull, of which she said she had written
you. While I was feebly smiling--I was still too unhappy to laugh--a
telegram was brought me which had Ruth's name in full, so it
evidently was intended I should not open it even in her absence.
When she had read it, she said: "What do you think? This is from
Maud, saying she will be here in the morning, and asking me to wait
for her as she wishes to see me on a matter of importance. Would you
mind starting without us and let me follow by train and meet you in
London?"
I have my faults as a husband, but I believe Ruth will testify that I
am not one of those who insist upon knowing what their wives have in
mind when they are not telling "the whole truth"! So I said: "Of
course not." And so it was arranged.
I did ask if she would like me to make a late start so as to be here
when her sister arrived. But she said I must not think of it. So
then I saw I was to know nothing, and that it would conduce to the
greatest happiness of the greatest number if I left as soon as
possible.
Fortunately for me, the battery was not in process of being charged,
for the man said he did not know there was any hurry! So I was able
to make an early start. I cut across lots and made straight for
Banbury, where I stopped at the same inn which had so charmed me on a
previous visit, an inn which would have charmed--perhaps did
charm--Dickens. The next day I went again through Oxford, and so to
London, entering on the west side, which I had learned was the
easiest of the many gates to enter.
When I reached the garage of the Frontenac Co., the manager listened
to my tale of woe with patience, but, when I said I had bought that
particular make of car because I had been assured by the salesman
that it was warranted "fool proof," dryly remarked that every warrant
had a limit, and reminded me that one was "born every minute." I
could not find a suitable reply, and so left the car with him,
promising to return the next day.
By way of distraction I went that night to one of the great
music-halls, which proved to be a kind of glorified "Keith's."
Sarah Bernhardt was the attraction, but not to me! There was nothing
left, it seemed to me, but the mannerisms of the second empire, and I
was glad when she left the stage. Had there been nothing else--such
as acrobats and performing dogs, both of which I delight in--it would
have been worth the price of admission to see Chevallier alone. He
was inimitable.
It would pay the trustees of a theological seminary to import him to
give "The Charity Bazaar" before the class in pastoral theology! It
was the most disgusting picture of the sycophantic priestly you ever
saw. The people screamed with laughter--let us hope because it was a
caricature and that they had never seen the original.
"The Vicar," dressed in the latest cry in "clericals," is supposed to
be receiving the guests at a Charity Bazaar. His insolence to the
poor, his failure to "see" the unholy dissenters, his cringing to the
prosperous and his crawling before the duchess, who was the last to
arrive, filled me with such shame that I had to shake myself to
remember that it was acting, and that I was not called upon to make
any remarks! If ever again you see me worshipping the Golden Calf,
please show me this letter! It was a positive relief when the
performing dogs came on the stage.
When I repaired to the garage next day, the manager said he could
find nothing wrong with the car. The only trouble was that I had let
the battery run down. I sarcastically remarked that he was mistaken;
I had not let the battery run down, it had run down of itself, and
that that was the best thing it did, that the battery had now been
charged three times in two weeks. He said that the local garages
were often careless about such matters, but that I should now find
that it was all right. When I tried it I found that it functioned
well, but as I could not start without Ruth, from whom I had heard
nothing since leaving Barchester, I decided to leave the car in his
care for another day at least.
When I took my place at the driver's seat next day, I insisted that
the manager should be present before I tested the car again. So he
was sent for. I took my place and pressed the button. "Nothing
doing." The manager suggested that the damp weather might have
affected the current, and asked me to try again. This I did, with
the same result as before. Then the manager tried, but it simply
would not work.
"What do _you_ think is the matter?" I said to the foreman, who, like
the manager, is an American.