"Why has the car stopped?"
"Ah!" I said, with a manly frankness that became me well. "There you
have me."
You see, I'm one of those birds who drive a lot but don't know the
first thing about the works. The policy I pursue is to get aboard, prod
the self-starter, and leave the rest to Nature. If anything goes wrong
I scream for an A. A. scout. It's a system that answers admirably as a
rule, but on the present occasion it blew a fuse owing to the fact that
there wasn't an A. A. scout within miles.
I explained as much to the fair cargo and received in return a "Pshaw"
from the Pyke that nearly lifted the top of my head off. What with
having a covey of female relations who have regarded me from childhood
as about ten degrees short of a half-wit, I have become rather a
connoisseur of "Pshaws," and the Pyke's seemed to me well up in Class
A, possessing much of the timbre and _brio_ of my aunt Agatha's.
"Perhaps I can find out what the trouble is," she said, becoming
calmer. "I understand cars."
She got out and began peering into the thing's vitals. I thought for a
moment of suggesting that its gastric juices might have taken a turn
for the worse owing to lack of fat-soluble vitamins, but decided on
the whole not. I'm a pretty close observer, and it didn't seem to me
that she was in the mood.
And yet, as a matter of fact, I should have been about right, at that.
For after fiddling with the engine for a while in a discontented sort
of way the female was suddenly struck with an idea. She tested it, and
it was proved correct. There was not a drop in the tank. No gas. In
other words, a complete lack of fat-soluble vitamins. What it amounted
to was that the job now before us was to get the old bus home purely by
will power.
Feeling that, from whatever angle they regarded the regrettable
occurrence, they could hardly blame me, I braced up a trifle--in fact,
to the extent of a hearty "Well, well, well!"
"No gas," I said. "Fancy that."
"But Bingo said he was going to fill the tank this morning," said Mrs.
Bingo.
"I suppose he forgot," said the Pyke. "He would!"
"What do you mean by that?" said Mrs. Bingo, and I noted in her voice a
touch of what-is-it.
"I mean he is just the sort of man who would forget to fill the tank,"
replied the Pyke, who also appeared somewhat moved.
"I should be very much obliged, Laura," said Mrs. Bingo, doing the
loyal-little-woman stuff, "if you would refrain from criticizing my
husband."
"Pshaw!" said the Pyke.
"And don't say 'Pshaw'!" said Mrs. Bingo.
"I shall say whatever I please," said the Pyke.
"Ladies, ladies!" I said. "Ladies, ladies, ladies!"
It was rash. Looking back, I can see that. One of the first lessons
life teaches us is that on these occasions of back-chat between the
delicately nurtured a man should retire into the offing, curl up in
a ball, and imitate the prudent tactics of the opossum, which, when
danger is in the air, pretends to be dead, frequently going to the
length of hanging out crape and instructing its friends to stand round
and say what a pity it all is. The only result of my dash at the
soothing intervention was that the Pyke turned on me like a wounded
leopardess.
"Well!" she said. "Aren't you proposing to do anything, Mr. Wooster?"
"What can I do?"
"There's a house over there. I should have thought it would be well
within even your powers to go and borrow a can of gasoline."
I looked. There was a house. And one of the lower windows was lighted,
indicating to the trained mind the presence of a taxpayer.
"A very sound and brainy scheme," I said ingratiatingly. "I will first
honk a little on the horn to show we're here, and then rapid action."
I honked, with the most gratifying results. Almost immediately a human
form appeared in the window. It seemed to be waving its arms in a matey
and welcoming sort of way. Stimulated and encouraged, I hastened to the
front door and gave it a breezy bang with the knocker. Things, I felt,
were moving.
The first bang produced no result. I had just lifted the knocker for
the encore, when it was wrenched out of my hand. The door flew open,
and there stood a bloke with an expression of strained anguish on his
face. A bloke with a secret sorrow.
I was sorry he had troubles, of course, but, having some of my own, I
came right down to the agenda without delay.
"I say----" I began.
The bloke's hair was standing up in a kind of tousled mass, and at this
juncture he ran a hand through it. And for the first time I noted that
his eyes had a hostile gleam.
"Was that you making that infernal noise?" he asked.
"Er--yes," I said. "I did honk."
"Honk once more--just once," said the bloke, speaking in a low,
strangled voice, "and I'll shred you up into little bits with my bare
hands. My wife's gone out for the evening and after hours of ceaseless
toil I've at last managed to get the baby to sleep, and you come along
making that hideous din with your confounded horn. What do you mean by
it, blast you?"
"Er----"
"Well, that's how matters stand," said the bloke, summing up. "One
more toot--just one single solitary suggestion of the faintest shadow
or suspicion of anything remotely approaching a toot--and may the Lord
have mercy on your soul."
"What I want," I said, "is gasoline."
"What you'll get," said the bloke, "is a thick ear."
And closing the door with the delicate caution of one brushing flies
off a sleeping Venus, he passed out of my life.
Women as a sex are always apt to be a trifle down on the defeated
warrior. Returning to the car, I was not well received. The impression
seemed to be that Bertram had not acquitted himself in a fashion worthy
of his crusading ancestors.
I did my best to smooth matters over, but you know how it is. When
you've broken down on a chilly autumn evening miles from anywhere and
have missed luncheon and look like missing tea as well, mere charm of
manner can never be a really satisfactory substitute for a can of the
juice.
Things got so noticeably unpleasant, in fact, that after a while,
mumbling something about getting help, I sidled off down the road. And
by Jove, I hadn't gone half a mile before I saw lights in the distance
and there, in the middle of this forsaken desert, was a car.