EXCEEDING THE SPEED LIMIT
I did not waste much time on the road. Fortunately there was a good
proportion of concrete road, although the inevitable natural gravel
was not by any means conspicuous by its absence. I also passed many
stretches of brick road.
This variety is confined in England mainly to city streets, and is
associated nearly always with trams. Not so in America. On the main
roads of the East I have passed many a ten-mile stretch of splendidly
paved highway made solely out of good red brick, and of the correct
size and shape and camber of surface that literally made one's
tyres hum and sing as each brick was momentarily touched in endless
procession. I need hardly say that for every good stretch of brick road
there are UMPTEEN bad ones though, just to add a spice of life
_à la grande route_. Here and there one would encounter by no means
solitary patches where apparently some enterprising farmer had torn up
a few bricks from in front of some one's house to repair his cowshed
or to build a new pigsty, or maybe to help put another storey on his
house. There would seem to the lay mind such as my own to be a most
decided disadvantage in this method of road construction! To put it
mildly, it is disheartening when one is enjoying a fifty-mile-an-hour
sprint on a straight stretch of road visible almost from horizon to
horizon, to be rudely awakened from swift but peaceful contemplation
of the beauties of nature, the loveliness of the atmosphere and the
joys of motoring by being mercilessly thrown on top of the handlebars
with one tremendous thump. At one spot of which I have very vivid
recollections, the road took a short dip down and up again. In the
bottom of the "valley" thus formed was a young but aspiring cañon where
a wayward stream had left its prosaic path to strike out in life on its
own across the road. Its presence was unfortunately undiscernible until
close acquaintanceship was made.
When I came round I was vaguely conscious of something having happened,
but as the engine was still running and the front wheel was still
fairly circular, I got up and rode on, but not until I had arrived
definitely at the conclusion that had I been doing sixty instead of
forty-five I should have jumped across the bit of road that wasn't
there and been hardly the wiser of it!
Here it was that I began to scratch crosses on the top tube to keep
count of the number of times I was thrown off on the whole trip.
When the top tube got too short I put them on the front down tube.
When that was full I scratched them on the bottom tubes.
After that I trusted to memory. But that was when I got to the "Far
West."
I made good time, however, in spite of an occasional set-back, and
looked forward to completing three hundred and fifty miles that day.
With luck I should reach Cincinnati the next, and then, oh for the joys
of a good hot bath, clean clothes, well-cooked food, and last, but not
by any means least, good company. And I wasn't forgetting either that
I had only about twenty-five dollars in my pocket. With no mishaps I
should have enough and to spare for even three or four days' travelling.
It was not yet midday, and the sun was getting very hot indeed.
Moreover, I was getting hungry. Although I believe the two-meal-a-day
system to be an excellent one, one sure gets a roaring appetite for
breakfast at the end of a hundred-mile ride. So if I had not a moral
excuse for a little real speed work I at least had a physical one. The
road surface now changed from red brick to dazzling white concrete
as in the far distance the Alleghany Mountains, that inexpressibly
beautiful range that stretches parallel with the Atlantic coastline
from Maine to Georgia, loomed gradually higher on the horizon, its
varying tints growing deeper and deeper as mile after mile flew by.
There was hardly a soul on the road. Occasionally I would pass a
touring car loaded up with human freight and with luggage bags,
bandboxes and portmanteaux piled up and strapped (and sometimes I
think glued!) to every available mudguard, wing or projection that was
large enough to accommodate them and quite a lot that weren't. Then
a hay wagon flew by, and then, after a few miles, a solitary farmer
on horseback--not at all a common sight in this land of Fords and
motor-cars. And after a few more miles a tiny black speck came into
view on the horizon. It took a long time to catch up. When I got closer
I made it out to be a Buick roadster, its two occupants, a young man
and his (apparent) fiancée, evidently enjoying a little spin in the
country. And he wasn't crawling either. A touch of my electric horn
(oh, a beautiful horn it was!) aroused his soul from its soliloquy and
he drew in to the right, waving me on vigorously as he did so. And
as I passed him he seemed to quicken a little. I glanced sideways for
an instant and spotted a gleam in his eye. So I accepted his unspoken
challenge and glanced now and then over my shoulder. He was hanging on
well, his six cylinders to my four. A mile was passed and he was still
just a little way behind. The road was clear and straight, so I opened
out a little more.
Another glance. He was still there. My speedometer hovered around fifty.
Not to be outdone I twisted Lizzie's right handlebar grip as far as it
would go, and like a bolt from the blue we darted ahead. Fifty-five,
sixty, sixty-one, sixty-two, sixty-five. The wind was simply screeching
in my ears.
Another glance back, our friend was slowly losing distance. A minute or
two more and he was fast dwindling behind. In ten miles he was almost
back on the horizon.
I had visions of breakfast in "Hagerstown," the next town of importance
not so very far ahead. And so I forgot our friend of the Buick. In ten
minutes' time I came to a village. As usual the good surface of the
highway stopped and the roads through the town turned from the perfect
concrete to an infernal hotch-potch of holes, gullies, ruts and mounds.
Ironical notice boards warned the traveller that he must reduce his
speed to fifteen miles per hour. It was purgatory even to go at four!
To plunge into a seething mass of soil-waves at speed is disconcerting.
It annoys you. But it is a custom that grows on you in Eastern America.
You flounder about from side to side; you take a hop, skip and a
jump here, there and everywhere; your very bones are shaken in their
sockets; your temper approaches a frenzy of despair; and your language!
Time was when I would blush with shame at the sound of a word that
was bad. Then a war came along and I learnt to experience the
soothing charm of an occasional flow of language. Occasionally I met
a sergeant-major who could swear freely for five minutes without even
repeating himself!
And then I motor-cycled across the States. And my heart rejoiced within
me that I had received such an excellent education. I found that with
very little provocation or practice I could, had I the desire, have
graduated to a very much higher stage of perfection in the United
States than with the British Army in France. Indeed I will go so far
as to aver that when ultimately I reached San Francisco not only could
I have put to shame the most cultured sergeant-major that ever drilled
recruits on a square, but in his moments of greatest enlightenment his
powers of speech would have appeared as the futile prattle of childhood
compared to what _I_ could have taught him.
So that is why I slowed down when I got to "Victorville."
In a few minutes, who should come alongside but our friend with the
Buick racer. He slowed down and put up his hand. "Mind stopping here a
minute?" he asked.
"Not at all," I replied, thinking he wanted to ask the way or borrow a
sparking plug--or maybe beg a match.
He got out of his car and came along.
"Say, d'ye know what speed you were doing way back there?" he asked
casually with a kind of ten-percent.-solution smile.
"Well, I don't know exactly, but I guess I got YOU beat,
anyway!" I chuckled.
Whereat he pulled a pocket-book from his coat and opened it. (Going to
give me his card, thought I.)
"I'll trouble you for your number," quoth he, as he came to a page that
was all nicely printed in columns ready for use.
From that moment I saw things in a different light. Verily the workings
of the Law would seem to be getting interesting.
"And your licence, please?" after he had obligingly removed a layer of
dust from my number-plate.
"What licence?"
"Your driving licence, of course. What y' think?"
"See here. Mebbe I do look a bit of a mug, but I do know you don't have
to have a separate licence in New York State, s'long as your machine is
registered. The number-plate is the same thing as a licence."
"Oh, is it? I didn't know that." (Pause) "Well, do you mind following
me a short way down the road--next block but one. It isn't far."
Whereat he got in his car again and moved slowly forward, while his
lady friend protruded her arm from one side as if to stop me if I was
inclined to dash past.
I did think of it in fact, because I knew I could give him a run for
his money, but America, I recollected, was noted for its telephone
service and I couldn't quite fancy having to resort to a hiding-place
near the banks of the Ohio or perchance a field of corn somewhere in
Indiana.
So I followed them down to the corner.
We stopped at a small wooden shanty on the door of which was a board
bearing the sign "DANIEL S. TOMKIN, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW." My
friend the "speed cop" pushed open the door and ushered me into a
passage. On the right was another marked "JUSTICE TOMKIN."
"Come in: come in," shouted a shrill seedy voice as the "cop" knocked
at the door.
"I've got a case for you, Judge," said he, when we got inside.
"Oh yes, oh yes!"--and then to me--"Take a seat, sir, please, and
er--make yourself at home."
I'm afraid at that juncture I began to laugh. The "Judge" was just
the kind of man that we love to see "on the pictures" in England, but
who we never believe really exists. I had seen his prototype dozens
of times before. Tall and wiry, thin legs and tight trousers, "Uncle
Sam" physiognomy with the usual goat's beard and with stars and stripes
printed in indelible ink all over him. He sat at a desk bare of papers,
books, letters or other impedimenta. How long the desk had been cleared
for action I know not, but his duties as a Justice of the Peace
evidently did not involve any overtime from the look of things. The
room was small and dingy and its walls were covered with shelves piled
with books of all colours, shapes and sizes.
JUDGE.--"And what has this gentleman been doing?"
SPEED COP (producing notebook and reading
therefrom).--"Driving a motor-cycle in excess of the legal speed limit,
namely at forty-five miles an hour."
JUDGE (after reaching from a bookcase a large red book marked
"Laws, Bye-Laws and Regulations existent in the State of Maryland,"
or words to that effect).--"I will proceed to read Statoot number
51, article 13, section 321b, subsection 2a of the 'Regulation of
Traffic in the State of Maryland Act, 1898.'"--(Submerged chuckle
from self)--"And it is hereby enacted that anyone found guilty of
exceeding 25 miles per hour but not exceeding 30 miles per hour will
be liable to a fine of not less than 5 dollars for the first offence
and of 50 dollars for a second and any subsequent offence; and anyone
found guilty of exceeding 30 miles an hour but not exceeding 35 miles
per hour will be liable to a fine of not less than 10 dollars for
the first offence, etc., etc.; and anyone found guilty of exceeding
35 miles per hour but not exceeding 45 miles per hour will be liable
to a fine of not less than 25 dollars for the first offence, etc.,
etc."--(Considerable amusement visible on the face of self)--"and
anyone found guilty of exceeding 60 miles per hour will be liable to a
fine of 100 dollars, etc., etc."--(Feeling of merriment subsides)--"but
anyone found guilty of exceeding 60 miles per hour will be liable to
a fine of 250 dollars for the first offence and of 1,000 dollars and
imprisonment for any subsequent offence. I am afraid, sir, in view of
the evidence and of the dictates of Statoot number 51, article 13,
section--etc., etc., I shall have to administer the minimum fine of 25
dollars." (I breathe again).
SELF.--"Say, Judge, we seem to have got a bit ahead, don't we?
Aren't I going to have a chance to say anything?"
JUDGE (a little "peeved." Evidently that aspect of the case
hadn't occurred to him).--"By all means, sir, by all means. Say jest
what you like."
Now I have neither the eloquence of a Disraeli nor the declamation of a
Demosthenes, but I do claim to have no small power of persuasion when
it comes to an argument or a question of opinion. So I mustered up
every effort and summoned every resource to convince this malevolent
Judge that he had been reading his "Statoots" upside down and that,
far from being incriminated, I should, on the contrary, be granted a
handsome award. I invoked the aid of every artifice known to humanity.
Every inflexion of the voice; every modulation of speech; every appeal
for sympathy, innocence, ignorance and youth known to me was conjured
up.
And to what purpose? Did the Judge budge?--I might as well have read
him Gibbon's _Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_ in five minutes for
all the good it did.
"I am very sorry, sir," he said, "but the Statoot says that the minimum
fine is 25 dollars, so it must be 25 dollars."
"But, my dear good Judge," said I, "I've only got about 25 dollars in
the world at the present moment."
"Well, I'm very sorry, but the fine is 25 dollars"--(and then an
afterthought)--"Oh! and costs as well."
"Costs!" I gasped in amazement.
"Yes, my costs will be 75 cents, and that makes 25 dollars 75 cents
altogether."
Then ensued more argument, more persuasion, more eloquence, more
appeals, but it was all in vain. I took out my wallet and counted out
my belongings.
I had just 25 dollars and a few odd "bits."
And then the humour of the situation appealed to me once more, and
stronger than ever before. I laughed at the Cop and I laughed at the
Judge and I laughed at myself for laughing and paid over the 25 dollars
75 cents.
"Thank you very much. Good-day, sir," said the Judge as he put the
"bucks" loosely in the drawer in his desk.
Here the Cop spoke up: "I have another charge against the defendant, of
riding without his registration certificate, but it's getting late, and
I think we might as well overlook it in view of the circumstances." (He
was evidently thinking of his girl waiting outside.)
I suggested it _would_ be as well and left the Judge to gloat over his
ill-gotten gains.
The idea of that goat-faced Judge and his sleek-eyed friend the "speed
cop" having a good dinner together at my expense did not appeal to my
better self. How was I going to travel 450 miles, buy petrol, oil and
food with about tenpence in my pocket? On the opposite side of the road
stood Lizzie with her carrier piled high and dusty, waiting, patiently
waiting, for her lord and master. Ah, pathetic sight!--An idea--I
return to the sanctum of the "Attorney-at-Law."
He was counting over the notes again.
"Say, Judge. S'posing you give me those notes back again. What'll it
mean in imprisonment?" I had always since childhood cherished a wild
desire to spend a night in prison. "The Statoot stipulates that there
will be an equivalent of one day's imprisonment for every dollar fine."
(Depths of despair once more, then enlightenment.) "Can you show me the
statute that says that?"
"Sure," and he reached for the volume.
"All right, don't bother," said I, and left him once more to count his
25 dollars 75 cents.
Somehow I couldn't help laughing at everything. Such interesting
sidelights into the workings of the ragtime laws of America are not met
with every day of the year, I mused. But what fun to be all alone in
America with nothing but a motor-bike and tenpence!
I guess the Judge was wondering what I was laughing at as he watched me
through the fly-net at his window while I kicked the engine to a roar
and rode away.
Truth to tell, I didn't quite know myself.
I was wondering when the petrol would give out.