THE ECCENTRIC GENTLEMAN
IT was a lovely morning. Philip, tramping vigorously along a
Hertfordshire highway, felt that if all his adventures were to be
conducted under such a kindly sun as this he would have little to
complain of. But at present his most pressing desire was to get as far
away from the residence of Mr. Montagu Falconer as possible.
He had quitted that restful establishment some three hours previously,
escaping from durance by the simple expedient of opening the French
window and walking out on to the lawn. He had caught an early morning
train into the country; and having travelled as far as one-and-ninepence
would carry him, had also covered a considerable distance upon two
sturdy legs. But he was uneasily conscious of the avenging power of the
Law, which, goaded into activity by his late host,--Heaven only knew on
what charges,--might be interesting itself on his behalf over all the
countryside.
Still, he felt that he had no alternative. If he had accepted Mr.
Falconer's pressing invitation to remain and be arrested at nine o'clock
that morning, a still more involved situation would have arisen. For one
thing Pegs and Mrs. Falconer would have been dragged into the fray,
which would have been a most unnecessary complication; for apparently
their choleric but obtuse protector had not scented their presence in
the plot at all. They would certainly have confessed complicity and
taken Philip's side; and this would have led to a domestic upheaval of a
most monumental character. So Philip had cut the Gordian knot by running
away.
It was eleven o'clock. He had breakfasted off the very inconsiderable
remains of his supper, and was now acutely conscious of the existence of
an excellent digestion clamouring for employment. He tramped resolutely
along the wide country road, fingering the sum of elevenpence which
remained in his right-hand trouser pocket, and wishing he could come to
a shop.
He also speculated as to his future. He was a clear-headed little boy,
and though he had led a secluded life, he had spent it almost entirely
with grown-up people, and was accustomed to marshalling facts and
weighing probabilities. He ran over the list of his accomplishments and
limitations.
He had no Latin or Greek, but was a good stenographer and typewriter. He
could keep accounts and file correspondence with method and neatness. He
was a promising mathematician, with a useful but unsystematic
acquaintance with mechanics and physics. He had read and re-read some
twenty of Shakespeare's plays. He knew long passages of Milton and
Tennyson by heart, and was well up in the history of ancient chivalry.
His favourite book was Sir Thomas Malory's "Morte d'Arthur"; next in
order ranked a string of well-thumbed science manuals. It may be added
that he had never read a novel in his life. The foundation-stone of nine
novels out of ten is a woman, and the coping-stone thereof is love made
perfect; so naturally such works had found no place upon Uncle Joseph's
shelves.
He was fairly expert with singlestick and rapier, and could play piquet
and double-dummy bridge with more than average skill. But he knew
nothing of cricket and football; and the ordinary joys of the
schoolboy's holidays--pantomimes, parties, and the like--were a sealed
book to him.
His labours on behalf of the Kind Young Hearts and Thomas Smith had
introduced him to a large and varied, if unusual, circle of
acquaintance, and he possessed a knowledge of human nature and the world
in general that a seasoned man about town might have envied.
For some time back his thoughts had been occupied with the contemplation
of a suitable career. The profession of Knight Errantry having
apparently fallen into desuetude, he had been compelled to resign
himself to the prospect of a more humdrum occupation. With the true
instinct for the surviving possibilities of romance, he had decided to
become an engineer. Like all boys of the present age he was consumed
with the desire to understand, direct, and control machinery--especially
the machinery of the automobile. The numerous cars which whizzed up and
down the Finchley Road were an abiding joy to him. He could tell the
make of any of them--just as a woman can tell the make of another
woman--by the cut of its bonnet. Number plates attracted him especially,
for they stimulated his imagination. When a mud-splashed car displaying
the letters "S.B." stole silently past him in the gathering darkness, he
realised with a thrill the bigness of the world; for this weary giant,
now slipping into the roaring heart of London, had come all the way from
the fastnesses of Argyllshire. He paid a penny a week for a small but
highly technical journal which dealt with the latest mode in such things
as sleeve-valves and detachable rims. He even executed designs of his
own, inventing tyres which never punctured and carburettors that never
choked. So now, with the choice of a career suddenly thrust upon him, he
had no difficulty in making up his mind. It had been made up for some
time. At this very moment he was on his way to Coventry, whence he knew
that vast numbers of motor-cars emanated. What he was going to do when
he got there he had not definitely settled. He felt that he already
possessed certain saleable merchandise in the form of clerical skill:
this he proposed to barter for technical instruction. He would arrange
details when he reached Coventry. Philip was essentially one of those
people who decline to think of the Vistula until they have crossed the
Rhine.
Presently he came to an old, lofty, and warmly tinted brick wall,
skirting the road for nearly a quarter of a mile on his right, and
evidently sheltering some venerable house and garden. As he approached,
Philip observed a large notice-board, jutting out for all to see.
MOTORISTS
Please drive slowly
along this wall. It contains
two hidden gates.
A quarter of a mile farther on, where the wall ended, came another
board, which said, simply:--
THANK YOU!
Philip's comment on this pretty device was characteristic.
"What a beast you would feel," he said to himself, "if you _didn't_
drive slowly and then found that 'Thank You!' sticking out at the end!"
He made a mental note that if ever he possessed a car of his own and
came to this wall, he would comply punctiliously with the request upon
the first board and so earn the right to read the second. He added a
rider to the effect that if ever he possessed a house of his own like
that he would put out a similar board.
He had scarcely passed the second of the concealed gates--the first was
a mere kitchen door--when there was a grinding of bolts, and the gates
were dragged open, slowly but resolutely, first one and then the other,
by a small but intensely fat girl of seven or eight. This proceeding
exposed to view the front of an ancient and ivy-clad house. Exactly
opposite to the front door stood a motorcar of antique design and
dilapidated appearance. From beneath the car projected a pair of human
feet, attached to a pair of lengthy legs. The owner of the legs was
apparently doing something painful to the underbody of the car, from
beneath which came a stream of objurations of a bloodthirsty but
innocuous type, punctuated by the clink of a spanner.
The small girl, breathing heavily, stooped down to inspect these
operations. Presently, adopting a more comfortable but somewhat
reptilian attitude, she crawled bodily under the car. Here she
encountered the head of the mechanic, who was lying on his back, engaged
apparently in the task of removing mud-stalactites from the bottom of
the car with a spanner. As fast as the stalactites were dislodged they
fell into the excavator's eyes or mouth.
"What are you doin' of, Daddy?" enquired a husky but interested voice in
his ear.
"Eating mud," replied the mechanic. "Splendid thing for the digestion,
Dumps. Have some?"
"No, thank you," was the dignified reply. "I shall be havin' a glass of
milk soon. But I will watch you," added Miss Dumps indulgently.
She rolled over with some difficulty on to her back, and lay staring
solemnly at the mud-encrusted vault above her, while her harassed parent
resumed his task of digging with the spanner for a buried nut.
"I've opened the gates, Daddy," announced the small lady presently, in
tones which were intended not so much to convey information as to remind
her companion that he was forgetting his duties as a conversationalist.
"Thank you, madam," replied Mr. Mablethorpe. "Is the road clear?"
"I seen a little boy."
"Trust you for that! Well, we must contrive not to run over him. Just
look in my left ear and see if you can find a nut, there's a good girl.
I rather fancy I heard it drop in just now. No, don't bother. Here it is
in my eye. Now we are really getting on!"
He adjusted the nut to the now exhumed bolt, and began to screw it tight
with the spanner. The recumbent Dumps turned her head and regarded him
admiringly.
"You are clever, Daddy!" she said.
"You are right," admitted her parent modestly. "I am a wonder. People
simply come miles to--Dash and confound the rotten thing! Run your
finger round the inside of my collar, Daniel Lambert. I think I can feel
it lying somewhere round at the back."
Once more the fugitive nut was recaptured and replaced--this time
permanently. Mr. Julius Mablethorpe wriggled painfully from under the
car on the gravel drive, and then, rising to his legs, politely dragged
his daughter out by the heels, and having first stood her upon her head
(in order, as he explained, to give her feet a rest) restored her to an
upright position, and surveyed her doubtfully.
"We shall get into trouble with Mother, Dumpling," was his first remark.
He was right. At that moment the front door opened, and Mrs. Mablethorpe
appeared.
"I can only say, Julius," she began at once,--as a matter of fact, no
one had invited her to say anything.--"that I am not in the least
surprised at anything you may do; but I _think_"--her voice quavered
tearfully--"that you might have had the sense to prevent that child from
crawling about in the mud too. Baby, go into the house and ask nurse to
give you a bath at once. Your hands and face are black!"
"But I am quite white, Mummy," replied Miss Dumpling soothingly (one
soon picked up the habit of speaking soothingly to Mrs. Mablethorpe),
"all over the rest of myself. Look, I'll show you!"
Before any one could stop her, the infant detached a stocking from its
moorings and rolled it down to her ankle.
"There!" she said triumphantly.
Mrs. Mablethorpe, fearing further enterprise, hurriedly reiterated her
ultimatum on the subject of a bath.
"A good hot one," she added.
"The kiddie would do much better to wash her hands and face in cold
water," said Mr. Mablethorpe. "What she is covered with is chiefly oil,
and hot water will only open her little pores and drive it in."
Mrs. Mablethorpe put her hand to her head, dizzily.
"You know I cannot bear argument, Julius," she said, with a little moan.
"Sorry!" said Mr. Mablethorpe humbly. "We must do as we are told, Dumps.
We will go upstairs and wash in hot water. Then we shall have black
hands and faces for months and months, and Mother won't be able to take
us to Church. Hurrah!"
And this undutiful parent and callous husband caught up his daughter on
his shoulder and carried her, shrieking joyfully, to the nursery. Five
minutes later he descended, clean and smiling, and after caressing his
hypochondriacal spouse, set to work to start up his engine. After three
back-fires this feat was accomplished, and the car, with much burring of
gear-wheels and slipping of the clutch, started off upon its deafening
career. The vehicle in question was an old friend, and like most old
friends felt privileged to speak its mind on all occasions, which it did
with no uncertain voice.
Mr. Mablethorpe, having safely negociated the gateway,--no light feat,
considering the amount of play on his steering-wheel,--turned sharp to
the right and proceeded northward. Presently he came to four
cross-roads. At the foot of the signpost sat a small, sturdy, and
well-dressed boy, with short, curly, red hair and hazel-green eyes.
As the car slowed down in case of cross traffic the boy rose to his
feet, and ranging up alongside asked a polite question.
Mr. Mablethorpe leaned over as far as he could.
"Is it _very_ important?" he yelled above the din. "If I stop this
engine to listen to you I may never be able to start it again."
Philip replied with the full pressure of his lungs, but the only
distinguishable word was "Coventry." The amiable Mr. Mablethorpe
accordingly switched off the current, and the engine clanked itself into
a state of coma.
"Now let us hear all about it," he said.
"Can you please tell me the way to Coventry?" enquired Philip.
"Coventry--eh? Have you been sent there?" Mr. Mablethorpe's eye
twinkled.
"No. I'm going of my own accord," said Philip innocently.
"First time I have heard of a man sending himself to Coventry," mused
Mr. Mablethorpe. He surveyed Philip's bewildered face with interest.
"Perhaps you don't catch the allusion, though. Don't you ever send any
one to Coventry at school?"
"I have never been to school, sir," replied Philip.
"That's a pity," said Mr. Mablethorpe. "But to resume. Coventry must be
a good eighty miles from here. Do you propose to walk?"
"Yes."
Mr. Mablethorpe eyed the pedestrian curiously. "Running away?" he asked.
"Sort of," admitted Philip.
"Well, I have only one motto in life," said Mr. Mablethorpe, "and that
is, 'Mind your own business!' So I will refrain from comment. I don't
know where Coventry is, but I should think you would not go far wrong if
you kept along this road, and asked again later. Now, with your
permission, I must be getting on."
Mr. Mablethorpe had not proceeded far on his way--to his surprise and
gratification the engine had come to life almost immediately--when his
conscience smote him.
"I might have offered the little beggar a lift," he said to himself.
"Silly not to have thought of it. He has a longish journey before
him--that is, if Papa doesn't lay him by the heels. I might stop and let
him overtake me. I wonder where he is."
He leaned over the side of the car and surveyed the road behind him.
The car, which had been waiting for some such opportunity as this all
morning, promptly mounted the footpath and charged a hedge. Fortunately
it was climbing a hill on its first speed at the time, so the results of
the impact were not serious.
Mr. Mablethorpe, who was quite accustomed to mishaps of this kind,
stopped his engine, and descended to earth to review the situation.
The first object which met his eye was Philip--a little blown and
obviously taken by surprise--standing in the road with one hand still
upon the Cape-cart hood.
"Hallo!" remarked Mr. Mablethorpe genially. "Still here?"
"Yes," replied Philip. "I thought I would run behind."
"Better come and sit in front," advised Mr. Mablethorpe. "But first of
all we must get Boanerges out of the hedge."
"Who?"
"Boanerges. Let me introduce you. I present Boanerges--my superb,
four-seated, two-cylinder, one dog-power reaping machine--to--to--Mr.--"
"Philip Meldrum."
"--To Mr. Philip Meldrum. Now you know one another. (At least, Boanerges
knows you: you don't know Boanerges.) Come and help to shove his ugly
face in!"
Philip assisted his new and eccentric friend to disentangle Boanerges
from the hedge and push him back into the roadway, and then obediently
took his seat. He was trembling with pure ecstasy. He was in a
motor-car! At last he had stepped from textbooks into the realms of
reality.
He surveyed the various appliances on the dingy dashboard. There were
two switches of the electric light variety, one marked "M" and the other
"A," which Philip knew stood for Magneto and Accumulator respectively.
There was an oil-reservoir, with a piston-rod protruding from the top,
and a glass gauge at one side to show the level of the oil. Last of all,
suspended from its tail by a drawing pin, came a clockwork mouse, which
had originally been the property of the Dumpling and was now spending
its declining years as a motor-mascot. Meanwhile Mr. Mablethorpe, with
the assistance of the starting-handle, had been playing a monotonous and
unmelodious tune upon his hurdy-gurdy-like engine. Presently he paused
for breath.
"Boanerges takes a lot of starting-up," he explained. "I'll have one
more go, and if that fails we will run him backwards down the hill and
let the reverse in. That ought to do it."
"Are you running on magneto or accumulator, sir?" enquired Philip.
Mr. Mablethorpe left the starting-handle and came thoughtfully round to
the side of the car.
"I don't seem to be running on either," he remarked. "My mistake! Let us
try this little fellow."
He turned down the switch marked "A," and returned to his labours. The
immediate result was a stunning explosion immediately under Philip's
feet.
"That is the first gun," explained Mr. Mablethorpe. "He always gives us
three before we start. The first is a protest; the second means '_Drop
it, or there will be trouble!_' and the third usually ushers in a
conflagration. After that I blow the flames out, and off we go!"
But this was too sanguine an estimate. After five resounding back-fires
the engine still failed to exhibit any signs of abiding vitality,
although the accumulator had been reinforced by the magneto. Mr.
Mablethorpe accordingly took his seat at the wheel and, releasing the
brakes, allowed the car to slide rapidly backward down the hill. At the
same time he performed some complicated evolutions with his feet.
Instantly the engine sprang into life, and Boanerges, with a playful
swerve, shot stern foremost into a bank at the other side of the
highway, with a bump which nearly sent Philip back-somersaulting into
the seat behind. The engine immediately stopped again.
That resourceful but unconventional mechanic, the owner of the car,
abandoned his pedal-work, descended once more into the road, and after
dispassionately kicking Boanerges three times in the pit of his
stomach--the radiator--seized the starting-handle and gave it another
resolute twirl.
This time his efforts were successful beyond all expectation. Boanerges
promptly charged forward, nearly pinning his tormentor beneath his
off-front wheel, and proceeded smartly up the hill once more, Mr.
Mablethorpe running frantically alongside and endeavouring to climb into
the driver's seat over the spare wheel.
"Another little mistake of mine," he panted, as he finally hopped on
board and took the wobbly steering-wheel over from Philip. "I left the
gears in the first speed instead of the neutral. But it is all right
now. We are off like an Arab steed. Let me oil him up."
He leaned forward and began to agitate the piston in the oil-reservoir,
with the result that Boanerges, emitting dense fumes of black smoke from
his exhaust, was soon breasting the slope with quite remarkable vigour.
"So you know something about motors?" said Mr. Mablethorpe, as they
reached the top of the hill and began to slide comfortably down the
other side.
"Only out of books," said Philip. "I have never been in a car before,
but I think I understand the way the engine works, and the ignition."
Mr. Mablethorpe surveyed him admiringly.
"Wonderful!" he said--"wonderful! Fancy any human creature being able to
understand textbooks! They simply prostrate _me_. I dare say," he added
enviously, "that you know what poppet-valves are! And worm-drives, and
differential sprockets! Prodigious!"
"Only by what I have read about them in a book," explained Philip
modestly.
"Well," continued Mr. Mablethorpe. "I know of one thing you never read
about in a book, and that was a car like this. Boanerges was built
before the printing-press was invented--in the dark ages--in the days of
the Black Art. Look at those two switches, marked 'M' and 'A.' They
stand for 'Mephistopheles and Apollyon'--the name of the firm who
supplied the engine. Oh, it's an eerie vehicle, this. Observe this
pedal. You wouldn't think a pedal could do more than just go up and
down, would you?"
"It might take out the clutch, or put on the brake, sir," hazarded
Philip respectfully.
Mr. Mablethorpe waved his hand contemptuously.
"That's nothing," he said. "Steady, old man!" (This to Boanerges, who,
feeling his owner's grip of the wheel relax, had swerved quite thirty
degrees out of his course.) "This car was designed by a man without
hands or arms--only feet and teeth. At least, I think so. His idea was
to steer with his teeth and do everything else with his feet. So he
started by abolishing gear-handles and side-brakes, and applied all his
ingenuity to the pedals. Look at this one,--the left. If I push it
half-down the car stops. If I push it two thirds down, the car starts
again--in the opposite direction--and the engine plays _I wish I was an
Angel_, instead of _Hitchy Koo_! We have a lot of fun in close traffic
that way. If I push it seven eighths down, the radiator boils over, and
I can have a shave or a cup of tea; and if I put it right down, the car
turns inside out and becomes a portable camp bedstead. I won't do that
at present, because I am not sleepy."
All this surprising information was communicated with an air of solemn
and confidential conviction; and Philip, who had never previously
encountered any one endowed with Mr. Mablethorpe's peculiar brand of
humour, merely gaped dumbly.
"Yes, Boanerges is a car of mystery," continued this excellent but
frivolous man presently. "There is a little handle-arrangement down
here, in the corner of the dashboard. I don't know who put it there: I
just noticed it one day, after I had owned the car for some time. I have
only turned it three times. The first time the whole of the back axle
dropped off into the road. The second time Boanerges turned right round
and ran over a duck which was asleep on a cottage doorstep behind us.
The third time a policeman with a notebook shot straight up out of the
roadway in front of the car, and took my name and address for
obstructing a funeral which had been trying to pass me for two hours.
That was about seventeen years ago, just after I bought the car. At
least, I didn't buy it: it was left to me by my great-grandmother. I
have never meddled with that handle since."
Philip, who had lived in serious company hitherto, and had no idea that
grown-up people ever descended to imbecility of this description, began
to like this strange gentleman. But he made no attempt to maintain a
conversation with him. After the dictatorial austerity of Uncle Joseph
he felt pleasantly intoxicated by his present companion's frothy
effervescence, and was well content to lean back in his seat and listen.
"Of course," resumed Mr. Mablethorpe presently, "I may be wrong about
the designer of this car having had no arms. He may have required
them--one of them, at any rate--for other purposes. For instance, he may
have been engaged to be married. Are you engaged to be married, by any
chance?"
"No," said Philip.
"Ah!"
Mr. Mablethorpe appeared to fall into a fresh train of thought, and
after a little while enquired:--
"What is your opinion of the female sex as a whole?"
Not long ago Philip could have given his opinion on this subject clearly
and concisely. Now he was content to quote the words of another.
"I don't quite know," he said, "but Uncle Joseph thinks--"
He hesitated. Mr. Mablethorpe might not be interested in Uncle Joseph.
But this astonishing gentleman appeared to be interested in everybody.
"Tell me all that Uncle Joseph thinks," he commanded.
"Uncle Joseph," began Philip, "used to wonder why women were ever
created."
Mr. Mablethorpe turned and regarded his small companion sharply.
"Aha! Uncle Joseph used to wonder that, did he? Why?"
"He said," continued Philip, warming to his subject as the familiar
phrases came back to him, "that there is no parallel to the female mind
in any other branch of Nature."
"That is true," remarked Mr. Mablethorpe approvingly. "I should like to
meet Uncle Joseph. Go on."
"It seems incredible," pursued Philip, with a curiously incongruous
expression of intense wisdom upon his honest and ingenuous features,
"that Providence should handicap its own beautifully designed human
engines by placing them in daily contact with such a piece of
uncontrolled and ill-balanced mechanism as Woman."
"Oho!" said Mr. Mablethorpe, manipulating the oil-pump, to the noisome
satisfaction of Boanerges; "Uncle Joseph said that, did he?"
"Yes; and he said putting women near a man was like putting a lot of
bar-magnets round a compass. And he said they were parasites, too,
actuated by predatory instincts. They--"
But Mr. Mablethorpe interrupted him.
"Uncle Joseph, I take it," he said, "is a married man."
"Oh, no," replied Philip, "he is a bachelor. He never allows a woman
into his house, even to wash,--at least, he never did until the other
day, when the Beautiful Lady came. And then--well, I didn't know what to
think, sir," he concluded helplessly.
"This," commented Mr. Mablethorpe, "is elliptical but interesting.
Proceed, my infant misogynist. Who was the Beautiful Lady, and why did
she call?"
"Well, sir," said Philip, knitting his brows, "it was like this. No
woman is ever--was ever--allowed into our house, because--because of
what Uncle Joseph thinks--thought--about them. Yesterday a lady called
when he was out, and got in."
"Who let her in?" enquired the accusing voice of Mr. Mablethorpe.
"I'm afraid I did, sir," replied Philip apologetically.
"I am not in the least surprised to hear it," said Mr. Mablethorpe.
"What was she like?"
"She was all in black, and she sat and talked to me for a long time, and
told me she had lost her little girl. Then Uncle Joseph came in,
and--and--and they seemed to know each other quite well, sir."
Mr. Mablethorpe deliberately switched off his engine and slowed down to
a stop at the roadside.
"Now we can talk without shouting," he said. "I scent copy. This is a
real live Romance. Continue. How well did Uncle Joseph and the Beautiful
Lady appear to know one another?"
"Pretty well," faltered Philip, with boylike reserve.
Mr. Mablethorpe, who had once been a boy himself,--there were some who
said that he had never grown up,--nodded understandingly.
"And what happened after that?" he asked.
"I ran away," said Philip.
"Why?"
"They did not seem to need me any more," said Philip simply.
Mr. Mablethorpe produced a pipe, and filled it with great care. He
appeared to be thinking deeply about something. Presently, after
lighting the pipe, he turned to Philip, and said:--
"Are you in a pressing hurry to get to Coventry?"
Philip thought not, and said so.
"Then why not come and stay with me for a bit?" suggested this amazing
man.