_FOR SALE.—A superb 3-seated Diablement-Odorant Touring Car, 12-15
h.-p., 1907 model, with Cape-cart hood, speedometer, spare wheel,
fanfare horn, and lamps complete. Body French-grey picked out with
red. Cost £350. Will take——_
The sum which the vendor was prepared to take was so startling, that to
mention it would entirely spoil the symmetry of the foregoing paragraph.
It is therefore deleted. The advertisement concluded by remarking that
the car was as good as new, and added darkly that the owner was going
abroad.
Such was the official title and description of the car. After making its
acquaintance we devised for ourselves other and shorter terms of
designation. I used to refer to it as My Bargain. Mr. Gootch, our local
cycle-agent and petrol-merchant, dismissed it gloomily as “one of them
owe-seven Oderongs.” My daughter (hereinafter termed The Gruffin)
christened it “Bill Bailey,” because it usually declined to come home;
and the title was adopted with singular enthusiasm and unanimity by
subsequent passengers.
I may preface this narrative by stating that until I purchased Bill
Bailey my experience of motor mechanics had been limited to a
motor-bicycle of antique design, which had been sold me by a distant
relative of my wife’s. This stately but inanimate vehicle I rode
assiduously for something like two months, buoyed up by the not
unreasonable hope that one day, provided I pedalled long enough and hard
enough, the engine would start. I was doomed to disappointment; and
after removing the driving-belt and riding the thing for another month
or so as an ordinary bicycle, mortifying my flesh and enlarging my heart
in the process, I bartered my unresponsive steed—it turned the scale at
about two hundredweight—to Mr. Gootch, in exchange for a set of new
wheels for the perambulator. Teresa—we called it Teresa after our first
cook, who on receiving notice invariably declined to go—was immediately
put into working order by Mr. Gootch, who, I believe, still wins prizes
with her at reliability trials.
To return to Bill Bailey. I had been coquetting with the idea of
purchasing a car for something like three months, and my wife had
definitely made up her mind upon the subject for something like three
years, when the advertisement already quoted caught my eye on the back
of an evening paper. The car was duly inspected by the family _en bloc_,
in its temporary abiding-place at a garage in distant Surbiton. What
chiefly attracted me was the price. My wife’s fancy was taken by the
French-grey body picked out with red, and the favourable consideration
of The Gruffin was secured by the idea of a speedometer reeling off its
mile per minute. The baby’s interest was chiefly centred in the fanfare
horn.
My young friend, Andy Finch—one of those fortunate people who feel
competent to give advice upon any subject under the sun—obligingly
offered to overhaul the engine and bearings and report upon their
condition. His report was entirely favourable, and the bargain was
concluded.
Next day, on returning home from the City, I found the new purchase
awaiting me in the coach-house. It was a two-seated affair, with a
precarious-looking arrangement like an iron camp-stool—known, I believe,
as a spider-seat—clamped on behind. A general survey of the car assured
me that the lamps, speedometer, spare wheel, and other extra fittings
had not been abstracted for the benefit of the gentleman who had gone
abroad; and I decided there and then to take a holiday next day and
indulge the family with an excursion.