Something had happened to Dame Quickly’s storage battery, and all
the amperes seemed to have escaped. An extremely friendly and
cheerful young man came up from Fred Seaman’s garage, with mysterious
medical-looking instruments, to grant a consultation. In the course of
the chat he remarked, “If you once ride in a _Boilroaster_ car, you’ll
never be satisfied with any other.”
His energetic hands were at that moment deep in our loved Dame
Quickly’s mechanisms; she was wholly at his mercy; naturally we did not
feel like contradicting him or saying anything tactless. We wondered,
but only privately, whether the fact that Fred Seaman is the local
agent for the _Boilroaster_ had anything to do with this comment? Or
perhaps, we thought to ourself, our friend the battery expert really
is a convinced enthusiast for the _Boilroaster_, and felt that way
about it before he took a job at Fred Seaman’s establishment? We were
sorry that William James was dead, for we felt that the author of _The
Will to Believe_ would be the man to whom to submit this philosophical
problem. We were puzzled, because only a few days earlier another man
had said to us (with an equal accent of decisiveness and conviction)
that he would rather have a Dame Quickly than any _Boilroaster_ ever
made. “They stand up better than any of ’em,” he had said. Suddenly
it occurred to us how useful it would be if there were some kind of
spiritual gauge--like the hydrometer our friend was plunging into
the cells of the Dame’s battery--which one could dip into a man’s
mind to test the intellectual mixture of his remarks; to evaluate the
proportions of those various liquids (the strong acid of self-interest,
the mild distilled water of candour, etc.) which electrify his mental
ignition.
Well, how about the _Boilroaster_, we said--(searching for a technical
term that would show him we are a practical man)--Do they stand up?
He suggested that we get into his own _Boilroaster_, which stood
grandly overshining the dusty Dame (reminding us of those pictures
where a silhouette of the new _Majestic_ is placed behind a little
picture of the _Teutonic_ or some other humble ship of older days) and
take a run around Salamis while he tinkered with the battery.
Oh, no, we said nervously. Dame Quickly is the only car we know how to
run, and besides the gear shift is different in the _Boilroaster_; we
might get confused and have to come all the way home in reverse, which
would be bad for our reputation in the village.
Have you ever ridden in the _Boilroaster_? he asked.
Yes, we said--Fred Seaman took us over to Locust Valley the other
evening. (Suddenly a horrid thought struck us. We had thought that Fred
had given us that lift over to Locust Valley just in the goodness of
his heart. But now we wondered----)
When he left, he put in our hand a handsome book all about the
_Boilroaster_. That, we felt, was the first step in breaking down our
“sales resistance,” as they say in the _Business e19 Course_ up at
Columbia.
We’ve been reading that book, and we want to say that the chaps
who write that sort of literature are cunning fellows, and masters
of a very insinuating prose style. They begin with a very pretty
frontispiece of a _Boilroaster_ car standing, all alone and
dazzling-new, in a magnificent landscape of snow-clad peaks and clear
lakes. How the _Boilroaster_ got way up there (evidently somewhere near
Banff) without any one driving her, and without even a speck of dust on
her fenders, is a mystery. But there she is. Perhaps the man who drove
her all those miles from the nearest distributing agency is at the bar
of the C. P. R. Hotel, off behind those pine forests.
All the highbrow critics will tell you that the truly great writers
are lovers of Beauty. Well, the anonymous author of the _Boilroaster_
book is as keen a champion of Beauty as any one we ever heard of. And
not only beauty, but refinement, too. There are two whole pages giving
little pictures of “refinements.” This is a book, we think, that could
be put in the hands of the young without any hesitation. In fact,
that is just where we did put it, for the urchin is cutting out the
pictures of _Boilroasters_ at this very minute. The whole trend of
Advertising nowadays (we wonder if they mention this in the lectures on
Advertising Psychology up at Columbia) is to give delight to children.
We would hate to tell the Cunard Line and the International Mercantile
Marine Company how many of their folders our juveniles have scissored
up with shouts of delight.
The _Boilroaster_ book is going to be a lesson to us. We don’t know
if we will ever own a _Boilroaster_, but we are certain that before
we do we have got to spruce up and be a bit more genteel. At present,
we would be a bit of anticlimax riding in a car like that. There is
“new beauty in its double bevel body line.” We want to look a bit
more streamline ourself before we go in for one. There are “massive
head lamps, graceful cowl lights, the louvres are more in number and
their edges show a smart touch of gold.” There is “a courtesy light
illuminating the left side of the car,” and a ventilator in the cowl.
We don’t know exactly what the cowl is, or the louvres, or at any rate
we’ve never discovered them in Dame Quickly.
Just as we are writing this, we see a headline in the papers (in
the _Evening Post_, to be accurate) about Sir Charles Higham, who
“Sees Advertising as a Great Moral Force.” We know of no writer who
has a more solid appreciation of moral forces than the author of
our _Boilroaster_ brochure. What he has to say about “sheer merit,”
“sound principles,” “elimination of waste,” “combination of beauty and
utility,” “superiority and refinement,” “good taste” and “harmony of
colour” makes this work a genuine essay in æsthetics. Moreover, we
like his rational eclecticism. When the car has a 126-inch wheelbase,
it makes it very easy riding and gives it charming “roadability.”
When it has a 119-inch wheelbase, it “gives a short turning radius
which makes it remarkably easy to handle.” Even in the least details,
our author has an eye for loveliness. He confesses himself struck by
“the attractive grouping of instruments on the dash, which emphasizes
_Boilroaster_ individuality.” The upholstery, he says, is “restful.”
The folding seat for the extra passenger is “in reality a comfortable
chair.” And when we learn that the opalescent dome and corner lamps
“provide enough light for reading,” our only regret is that he doesn’t
add a suggested list of readings for tenants of a _Boilroaster_
Enormous Eight.
Unhappily space is lacking to tell you in detail what a competent and
winning fellow this author is. In the scientific portions of the work
he rivals Fabre--in regard to the clutch, he says “the driven member is
a single spider rotating between two rings.” His passion for elegance,
comfort, simplicity, and economy has never been surpassed--no, not by
Plato or Walter Pater. The only drawback about his essay is that we
feel we could never live up to the vehicle he describes.
[Illustration]