"Them things," said Alfred the chauffeur, tapping the speed indicator with his fingers, "them things are all right for the police. But, Lord, you can fix 'em up if you want to. Did you ever hear about Henery, that used to drive for old John Bull -- about Henery and the elephant?"
Alfred was chauffeur to a friend of mine who owned a very powerful car.
Alfred was part of that car. Weirdly intelligent, of poor physique, he might have been any age from fifteen to eighty. His education had been somewhat hurried, but there was no doubt as to his mechanical ability.
He took to a car like a young duck to water. He talked motor, thought motor, and would have accepted -- I won't say with enthusiasm, for Alfred's motto was `Nil admirari' -- but without hesitation, an offer to drive in the greatest race in the world.
He could drive really well, too; as for belief in himself, after six months' apprenticeship in a garage he was prepared to vivisect a six-cylinder engine with the confidence of a diplomaed bachelor of engineering.
Barring a tendency to flash driving, and a delight in persecuting slow cars by driving just in front of them and letting them come up and enjoy his dust, and then shooting away again, he was a respectable member of society. When his boss was in the car he cloaked the natural ferocity of his instincts; but this day, with only myself on board, and a clear run of a hundred and twenty miles up to the station before him, he let her loose, confident that if any trouble occurred I would be held morally responsible.
As we flew past a somnolent bush pub, Alfred, whistling softly, leant forward and turned on a little more oil.
"You never heard about Henery and the elephant?" he said.
"It was dead funny. Henery was a bushwacker, but clean mad on motorin'.
He was wood and water joey at some squatter's place until he seen a motor-car go past one day, the first that ever they had in the districk.
"`That's my game,' says Henery; `no more wood and water joey for me.'
"So he comes to town and gets a job off Miles that had that garage at the back of Allison's. An old cove that they called John Bull -- I don't know his right name, he was a fat old cove -- he used to come there to hire cars, and Henery used to drive him.
And this old John Bull he had lots of stuff, so at last he reckons he's going to get a car for himself, and he promises Henery a job to drive it. A queer cove this Henery was -- half mad, I think, but the best hand with a car ever I see."
While he had been talking we topped a hill, and opened up a new stretch of blue-grey granite-like road. Down at the foot of the hill was a teamster's waggon in camp; the horses in their harness munching at their nose-bags, while the teamster and a mate were boiling a billy a little off to the side of the road. There was a turn in the road just below the waggon which looked a bit sharp, so of course Alfred bore down on it like a whirlwind. The big stupid team-horses huddled together and pushed each other awkwardly as we passed.
A dog that had been sleeping in the shade of the waggon sprang out right in front of the car, and was exterminated without ever knowing what struck him.
There was just room to clear the tail of the waggon and negotiate the turn.
Alfred, with the calm decision of a Napoleon, swung round the bend to find that the teamster's hack, fast asleep, was tied to the tail of the waggon. Nothing but a lightning-like twist of the steering-wheel prevented our scooping the old animal up, and taking him on board as a passenger. As it was, we carried off most of his tail as a trophy on the brass of the lamp. The old steed, thus rudely awakened, lashed out good and hard, but by that time we were gone, and he missed the car by a quarter of a mile.
During this strenuous episode Alfred never relaxed his professional stolidity, and, when we were clear, went on with his story in the tone of a man who found life wanting in animation.
"Well, at fust, the old man would only buy one of these little eight-horse rubby-dubbys that go strugglin' up 'ills with a death-rattle in its throat, and all the people in buggies passin' it.
O' course that didn't suit Henery. He used to get that spiked when a car passed him, he'd nearly go mad. And one day he nearly got the sack for dodgin' about up a steep 'ill in front of one o' them big twenty-four Darracqs, full of 'owlin' toffs, and not lettin' 'em get a chance to go past till they got to the top. But at last he persuaded old John Bull to let him go to England and buy a car for him.
He was to do a year in the shops, and pick up all the wrinkles, and get a car for the old man. Bit better than wood and water joeying, wasn't it?"
Our progress here was barred by our rounding a corner right on to a flock of sheep, that at once packed together into a solid mass in front of us, blocking the whole road from fence to fence.
"Silly cows o' things, ain't they?" said Alfred, putting on his emergency brake, and skidding up till the car came softly to rest against the cushion-like mass -- a much quicker stop than any horse-drawn vehicle could have made. A few sheep were crushed somewhat, but it is well known that a sheep is practically indestructible by violence.
Whatever Alfred's faults were, he certainly could drive.
"Well," he went on, lighting a cigarette, unheeding the growls of the drovers, who were trying to get the sheep to pass the car, "well, as I was sayin', Henery went to England, and he got a car.
Do you know wot he got?"
"No, I don't."
"'E got a ninety," said Alfred slowly, giving time for the words to soak in.
"A ninety! What do you mean?"
"'E got a ninety -- a ninety-horse-power racin' engine wot was made for some American millionaire and wasn't as fast as wot some other millionaire had, so he sold it for the price of the iron, and Henery got it, and had a body built for it, and he comes out here and tells us all it's a twenty mongrel -- you know, one of them cars that's made part in one place and part in another, the body here and the engine there, and the radiator another place.
There's lots of cheap cars made like that.
