12.15. Andy performs a feat which he describes as “tickling the
carburetter.”
12.16-12.20. Andy turns the handle in front.
12.20-12.25. I turn the handle in front.
12.25-12.30. Andy turns the handle in front.
12.30-12.45. Adjournment to the dining-room sideboard.
12.45-12.50. Andy turns the handle in front.
12.50-12.55. I turn the handle in front.
12.55-1. Andy turns the handle in front and I tickle the carburetter.
1-1.5. I turn the handle in front and Andy tickles the carburetter.
At 1.5 Andy announced that there was one infallible way to start a
refractory car, and that was to let it run down hill under its own
momentum, and then suddenly let the clutch in. I need hardly say that my
residence lies in a hollow. However, with the assistance of The Gruffin,
we manfully trundled our superb 1907 Diablement-Odorant out of the
coach-house, and pushed it up the hill without mishap, if I except two
large dents in the back of the body, caused by the ignorance of my
daughter that what looks like solid timber may after all be only hollow
aluminium.
We then turned the car, climbed on board, and proceeded to descend the
hill by the force of gravity. Bill Bailey I must say travelled
beautifully, despite my self-appointed chauffeur’s efforts to interfere
with his movements by stamping on pedals and manipulating levers.
Absorbed with these exercises, Andy failed to observe the imminence of
our destination, and we reached the foot of the hill at a good
twenty-five miles an hour, the back wheels locked fast by a belated but
whole-hearted application of the hand-brake. However, the collision with
the confines of my estate was comparatively gentle, and we soon
disentangled the head-light from the garden hedge.
The engine still failed to exhibit any signs of life.
At this point my wife, who had been patiently sitting in the hall
wearing a new motor-bonnet for the best part of two hours, came out and
suggested that we should proclaim a temporary truce and have lunch.
At 2.30 we returned to the scene of operations. Having once more tickled
the now thoroughly depressed carburetter to the requisite pitch of
hilarity, Andy was on the point of resuming operations with the
starting-handle, when I drew his attention to a small stud-like affair
sliding across a groove in the dash-board.
“I think,” I remarked, “that that is the only thing on the car which you
haven’t fiddled with as yet. Supposing I push it across?”
Andy, I was pleased to observe, betrayed distinct signs of confusion.
Recovering quickly, he protested that the condemned thing was of no
particular use, but I could push it across if I liked.
I did so. Next moment, after three deafening but encouraging backfires,
Bill Bailey’s engine came to life with a roar, and the car proceeded
rapidly backwards down the road, Andy, threaded through the spare wheel
like a camel in a needle’s eye, slapping down pedals with one hand and
clutching at the steering-gear with the other.
“Who left the reverse in?” he panted, when the car had at length been
brought to a standstill and the engine stopped.
No explanation was forthcoming, but I observed the scared and flushed
countenance of my daughter peering apprehensively round the coach-house
door, and drew my own conclusions.
Since Bill Bailey was obviously prepared to atone for past inertia by
frenzied activity, our trial trip now came within the sphere of
possibility. My wife had by this time removed her bonnet, and flatly
declined to accompany us, alleging somewhat unkindly that she was
expecting friends to tennis at the end of the week. The Gruffin,
however, would not be parted from us, and presently Bill Bailey, with an
enthusiastic but incompetent chauffeur at the wheel, an apprehensive
proprietor holding on beside him, and a touzled long-legged hoyden of
twelve clinging grimly to the spider-seat behind, clanked majestically
out of the garden gate and breasted the slope leading to the main road.
Victory at last! This was life! This was joy! I leaned back and took a
full breath. The Gruffin, protruding her unkempt head between mine and
Andy’s, shrieked out a hope that we might encounter a load of hay _en
route_. It was so lucky, she said. She was not disappointed.
From the outset it was obvious that the money expended upon the fanfare
horn had been thrown away. No fanfare could have advertised Bill
Bailey’s approach more efficaciously than Bill himself. He was his own
trumpeter. Whenever we passed a roadside cottage we found frantic
mothers garnering stray children into doorways, what time the fauna of
the district hastily took refuge in ditches or behind hedges.
Still, all went well, as they say in reporting railway disasters, until
we had travelled about four miles, when the near-side front wheel
settled down with a gentle sigh upon its rim, and the tyre assumed a
plane instead of a cylindrical surface. Ten minutes’ strenuous work with
a pump restored it to its former rotundity, and off we went again at
what can only be described as a rattling pace.
After another mile or so I decided to take the helm myself, not because
I thought I could drive the car well, but because I could not conceive
how any one could drive it worse than Andy.