Motorists, as a class, are not averse to public discussion of their
troubles. In fact, one often wonders how some of them ever get time to
operate their cars, so tied up do they seem to be with these little
experience-meetings, at which one man tells, with appropriate
gestures, how he ran out of gas between Springfield and Worcester,
while another gives a perfect bit of character acting to show just how
the policeman on the outskirts of Trenton behaved.
But there seems to be one phase of the motorist's trials which he
never bares to the public. He will confide to you just how bad the
gasoline was that he bought at the country garage; he will make it an
open secret that he had four blow-outs on the way home from the
country-club; but of one of his most poignant sorrows he never speaks.
I refer to the guests who snuggle in his tonneau.
Probably more irritations have arisen from the tonneau than from the
tires, day in and day out, and yet you never hear a man say, "Well, I
certainly had an unholy crew of camp-followers out with me
to-day--friends of my wife." Say what you will, there is an innate
delicacy in the average motorist, or such repression could not be.
Consider the types of tonneau guests. They are as generic and
fundamental as the spectrum and you will find them in Maine and New
Mexico at the same time.
There is the first, or major, classification, which may be designated
as the Financially Paralyzed. Persons in this class, on stepping into
your machine, automatically transfer all their money troubles to you.
You become, for the duration of the ride, whether it be to the next
corner or to Palm Beach, their financial guardian, and any little
purchases which are incidental to the trip (such as three meals a day)
belong to your list of running expenses. There seems to be something
about the motion of the automobile that inhibits their ability to
reach for their purses, and they become, if you want to be poetical
about it, like clay in the hands of the potter. Whither thou goest
they will go; thy check-book is their check-book. It is just like the
one great, big, jolly family--of which you are the father and backer.
Such people always make a great to-do about starting off on a trip.
You call for them and they appear at the window and wave, to signify
that they see you, and go through motions to show that just as soon as
Clara has put on her leggings they will be down. Soon they appear,
swathed in a tremendous quantity of motor wraps and veils (you can
usually tell the guests in a car by the number of head-veils they
wear) and get halfway down the walk, when Clara remembers her
rain-coat and has to swish back upstairs, veils and all. Out again,
and just as they get wedged into the tonneau, the elderly guest
wonders if there is time for some one to run in again and tell Helma
that if the Salvation Army man comes for the old magazines she is to
tell him to come again to-morrow. By the time this message is relayed
to Helma Garcia one solid half-hour has been dissipated from the cream
of the morning. This does not prevent the guests from remarking, as
the motor starts, that it certainly is a heavenly day and that it
couldn't have been better if it had been ordered. Knowing the type,
you can say to yourself that if the day _had_ been ordered you know
who would have had to give the order and pay the check.
From that time on, you are the moneyed interest behind the venture.
Meals at road-houses, toll charges, evening papers, hot chocolates at
the country drug store, hair net for Clara, and, of course, a liberal
injection of gasoline on the way home, all of these items and about
fourteen others come in your bailiwick. The guests have been asked out
for a ride, and "findings is keepings." If you have money enough to
run a car, you probably have money enough to support them for a day or
so. That's only fair, isn't it?
[Illustration: "He always has a quip to snap at you to keep you
cheered up."]
Under a sub-head (a), in this same category, come the guests who are
stricken with _rigor mortis_ when there are any repairs to be made
about the machine. Male offenders in this line are, of course, the
only ones that can be dealt with here; putting on a tire is no job for
women and children. But the man who is the life of the party in the
tonneau throughout the trip, who thinks nothing of climbing all over
the back of the car in imitation of a Roman charioteer, will suddenly
become an advocate of the basic eight-hour working day which began
just eight hours before, whenever there is a man's work to be done on
one of the tires. He will watch you while you work, and always has a
good word to say or a quip to snap at you to keep you cheered up, but
when it comes to taking off his coat and lending a hand at the jack he
is an Oriental incense-holder on the guest-room mantel. He admits in
no uncertain tones, that he is a perfect dub when it comes to handling
machinery and that he is more apt to be in the way at a time like this
than not. And maybe he is right, after all.
We next come to the class of tonneau-freight who are great believers
in what Professor Muensterberg called "Auto-Suggestion." These people,
although not seated in the driver's seat, have their own ideas on
driving and spare no pains to put their theories in the form of
suggestions. In justice to the Great Army of the Unemployed known as
"guests" it must be admitted that a large percentage of these
suggestions emanate from some member of the owner's family and not
from outsiders. It is very often Mrs. Wife who is off-side in this
play, but as she is usually in the tonneau, she comes under the same
classification.
There are various ways of framing suggestions to the driver from the
back seat. They are all equally annoying. Among the best are:
"For heaven's sake, George, turn in a little. There is a car behind
that wants to pass us."
"Look out where you're going, Stan."
"Henry, if you don't slow down I'm going to get out and take the train
back home."
[Illustration: "If this is accompanied with a clutching gesture at the
driver's arm, it is sure to throw him into a good humor."]
If this is accompanied by a clutching gesture at the driver's arm it
is sure to throw him into a good humor for the rest of the trip, so
that a good time will be had by all present.
Although guests are not so prone to make suggestions on the running of
the car as are those who, through the safety of family connection, may
do so without fear of bodily assault from the driver, nevertheless, a
guest may, according to the code, lean over the back of the seat and
slip little hints as to the route. Especially if one of them be
entrusted with a Blue Book does this form of auto-suggestion become
chronic.
"It says here that we should have taken that road to the right back
there by the Soldiers' Monument," informs the reader over your
shoulder. Or--
"Somehow this doesn't seem like the right road. Personally, I think
that we ought to turn around and go back to the cross-roads."
If it is Mrs. Wife in the tonneau who has her own ideas on the route,
you might as well give in at her first suggestion, for the risk that
she is right is too great to run. If she says that she would advise
taking the lane that runs around behind that school-house, take it.
Then, if it turns out to be a blind alley, you have the satisfaction
of saying nothing, very eloquently and effectively. But if you refuse
to take her suggestion, and your road turns out to be even halfway
wrong, you might as well turn the wheel over to your little son and go
South for the winter, for you will never hear the ultimate cry of
triumph. Your season will practically be ruined. I can quote verbatim
from the last affair of this kind:
(Voice from the tonneau): "Albert, I think we ought to have taken the
road at the left."
"No, we hadn't."
"I'm sure of it. I saw a sign which said: 'Paxton' on it."
"No, you didn't."
"Well, you wait and see."
"I'm waiting."
There is a silence for ten minutes, while the car jounces along a road
which gets narrower and rockier.
(Voice from the tonneau): "I suppose you think this is the way to
Paxton?"
"I certainly _do_."
"Oh, you make me sick!"
Silence and jounces.
Sudden stop as the road ends at a silo.
"I beg your pardon [addressed to a rustic], which is the road to
Paxton?"
"Paxton?"
"Yes."
"The road to Paxton?"
"Yes."
"Well, you go back over the rud you just come over, about three mile,
till you come to a rud turnin' off to the right with a sign which says
'Paxton.'"
(Voice from the tonneau, beginning at this point and continuing all of
the way back, all the rest of the day and night, and until snow
falls): "_There!_ what did I tell you? But, oh no, you know it all.
Didn't I tell you"--etc., etc.
On the whole, it would seem that the artists who draw the automobile
advertisements make a mistake in drawing the tonneau so roomy and so
full of people. There should be no tonneau.