Part 8 (1/2)
Ill.u.s.tration: _Village Constable_ (_to villager who has been knocked down by pa.s.sing motor cyclist_). ”You didn't see the number, but could you swear to the man?”
_Villager._ ”I did; but I don't think 'e 'eard me.”
Ill.u.s.tration: THE JOYS OF MOTORING.--No, this is not a dreadful accident. He is simply tightening a nut or something, and she is hoping he won't be much longer.
SUGGESTED ADDITIONAL TAXATION
__ _s._ _d._
For every Motor Car 4 4 0 If with smell 5 5 0 Extra offensive ditto 6 6 0
Motor Car proceeding at over ten miles an hour, for each additional mile 1 1 0
For every Bicycle used for ”scorching” 0 10 0
THE ORIGINAL CLa.s.sICAL BICYCLIST.--”Ixion; or, the Man on the Wheel.”
MY STEAM MOTOR-CAR
(1) Monday.--I buy a beautiful steam motor-car. Am photographed. (2) Tuesday.--I take it out. Pull the wrong lever, and back into a shop window. A bad start. (3) Wednesday morning.--A few things I ran over.
(4) Wednesday afternoon.--Took too sharp a turn. Narrowly escaped knocking down policeman at the corner. Ran over both his feet. (5) Thursday morning.--Got stuck in a ditch four miles from home. (6) Thursday evening.--Arrive home. Back the car into the shed. Miss the door and knock the shed down. (7) Friday.--Ran over my neighbour's dog.
(8) Sat.u.r.day.--Silly car breaks down three miles from home. Hire a horse to tow it back. (9) Sunday.--Filling up. Petrol tank caught fire.
Wretched thing burnt. Thank goodness!
Ill.u.s.tration: MY STEAM MOTOR-CAR
MODERN ROMANCE OF THE ROAD
[”It is said that the perpetrators of a recent burglary got clear away with their booty by the help of an automobile. At this rate we may expect to be attacked, ere long, by automobilist highwaymen.”--_Paris Correspondent of Daily Paper._]
It was midnight. The wind howled drearily over the lonely heath; the moon shone fitfully through the driving clouds. By its gleam an observer might have noted a solitary automobile painfully jolting along the rough road that lay across the common. Its speed, as carefully noted by an intelligent constable half-an-hour earlier, was 41.275 miles an hour. To the ordinary observer it would appear somewhat less. Two figures might have been descried on the machine; the one the gallant Hubert de Fitztompkyns, the other Lady Clarabella, his young and lovely bride.
Clarabella s.h.i.+vered, and drew her sables more closely around her.
”I am frightened,” she murmured. ”It is so dark and cold, Hubert, and this is a well-known place for highwaymen! Suppose we should be attacked?”
”Pooh!” replied her husband, deftly manipulating the oil-can. ”Who should attack us when 'tis common talk that you p.a.w.ned your diamonds a month ago? Besides, we have a swivel-mounted Maxim on our machine. Ill would it fare with the rogue who--Heavens! what was that?”
From the far distance sounded a weird, unearthly noise, growing clearer and louder even as Hubert and his wife listened. It was the whistle of another automobile!