Part 14

To cheer me up Ruth now told me of her conversation in this same garden with the typical John Bull, of which she said she had written you. While I was feebly smiling--I was still too unhappy to laugh--a telegram was brought me which had Ruth's name in full, so it evidently was intended I should not open it even in her absence.

When she had read it, she said: "What do you think? This is from Maud, saying she will be here in the morning, and asking me to wait for her as she wishes to see me on a matter of importance. Would you mind starting without us and let me follow by train and meet you in London?"

I have my faults as a husband, but I believe Ruth will testify that I am not one of those who insist upon knowing what their wives have in mind when they are not telling "the whole truth"! So I said: "Of course not." And so it was arranged.

I did ask if she would like me to make a late start so as to be here when her sister arrived. But she said I must not think of it. So then I saw I was to know nothing, and that it would conduce to the greatest happiness of the greatest number if I left as soon as possible.

Fortunately for me, the battery was not in process of being charged, for the man said he did not know there was any hurry! So I was able to make an early start. I cut across lots and made straight for Banbury, where I stopped at the same inn which had so charmed me on a previous visit, an inn which would have charmed--perhaps did charm--Dickens. The next day I went again through Oxford, and so to London, entering on the west side, which I had learned was the easiest of the many gates to enter.

When I reached the garage of the Frontenac Co., the manager listened to my tale of woe with patience, but, when I said I had bought that particular make of car because I had been assured by the salesman that it was warranted "fool proof," dryly remarked that every warrant had a limit, and reminded me that one was "born every minute." I could not find a suitable reply, and so left the car with him, promising to return the next day.

By way of distraction I went that night to one of the great music-halls, which proved to be a kind of glorified "Keith's."

Sarah Bernhardt was the attraction, but not to me! There was nothing left, it seemed to me, but the mannerisms of the second empire, and I was glad when she left the stage. Had there been nothing else--such as acrobats and performing dogs, both of which I delight in--it would have been worth the price of admission to see Chevallier alone. He was inimitable.

It would pay the trustees of a theological seminary to import him to give "The Charity Bazaar" before the class in pastoral theology! It was the most disgusting picture of the sycophantic priestly you ever saw. The people screamed with laughter--let us hope because it was a caricature and that they had never seen the original.

"The Vicar," dressed in the latest cry in "clericals," is supposed to be receiving the guests at a Charity Bazaar. His insolence to the poor, his failure to "see" the unholy dissenters, his cringing to the prosperous and his crawling before the duchess, who was the last to arrive, filled me with such shame that I had to shake myself to remember that it was acting, and that I was not called upon to make any remarks! If ever again you see me worshipping the Golden Calf, please show me this letter! It was a positive relief when the performing dogs came on the stage.

When I repaired to the garage next day, the manager said he could find nothing wrong with the car. The only trouble was that I had let the battery run down. I sarcastically remarked that he was mistaken; I had not let the battery run down, it had run down of itself, and that that was the best thing it did, that the battery had now been charged three times in two weeks. He said that the local garages were often careless about such matters, but that I should now find that it was all right. When I tried it I found that it functioned well, but as I could not start without Ruth, from whom I had heard nothing since leaving Barchester, I decided to leave the car in his care for another day at least.

When I took my place at the driver's seat next day, I insisted that the manager should be present before I tested the car again. So he was sent for. I took my place and pressed the button. "Nothing doing." The manager suggested that the damp weather might have affected the current, and asked me to try again. This I did, with the same result as before. Then the manager tried, but it simply would not work.

"What do _you_ think is the matter?" I said to the foreman, who, like the manager, is an American.

He laconically replied: "You may search me."

The manager said nothing and I viciously remarked: "Perhaps the battery has run down. Some of these garages are so careless!"

He started to say something, and then evidently thought better of it. After a moment he said: "Well, I simply do not understand it. You saw for yourself that it worked perfectly two days ago?"

"Yes," I said, "it always works 'perfectly' immediately after charging, but forty-eight hours later is 'dead.' The truth is the thing is a failure."

"There will not be an American car on the market next year without one. They all follow the lead of the 'Frontenac,'" he indignantly replied.

"This one will not lead them far," I said, being by this time thoroughly disgusted.

"Our chief engineer is in Scotland, but is returning to-morrow. If you will leave the car here I will have him go over it from headlights to brake, and he will find the difficulty. You say it always runs till forty-eight hours after charging?"

"Yes, that has been my experience."

"How long since you first had this trouble?"

"About three weeks."

"Well, there is evidently nothing mechanically wrong. There is probably a leak which we have not been able to locate, and there the current escapes. If he cannot discover the trouble, I will cable to headquarters at home and we will see if you are right, and the invention is a failure. If you have made such a discovery, I should not like to say how many thousands of dollars the company has lost. But you may be sure the 'Frontinac' will scrap it quicker than they installed it."

I had gone to the "Holland," which Ruth scorns, and I must say that, in my frame of mind at the time, I did not find the voices of my fellow countrymen soothing! A number of people were gathered in the great room under the glass dome, having afternoon tea, when a small boy appeared in the doorway and called out in a shrill voice: "Mummer, pop says can't you get a move on?" Mummer was fat and slow, but she did get the move on, and, what must have been a relief to the rest of the company, her son did the same! I thought with regret of the dear little children at Llandino, and wished we might devote a little more time to voice culture. At that moment a page passed through, saying very quietly--so different from our "paging" at home: "Mr. Dobson, if you please; Mr. Dobson, if you please," and when he came opposite where I was sitting, I did "please," and he handed me a telegram. It was from Ruth, saying that she and her sister were at a small hotel in Kensington, and asking me to join them. But of what Ruth told me when I reached there I will tell you after I have finished the story of the self-starter.

Three anxious days passed, and I again presented myself at the garage. I noticed that every one who saw me grinned, which did not make me feel better disposed toward the company. When the manager appeared--he, too, was smiling--I said: "Have you found the trouble?"

"Oh, yes," he said, "the battery had run down."

"So I suppose," I replied, with biting sarcasm. "Have you found the leak?"

"Yes, the engineer found it as soon as we told him that the battery ran down forty-eight hours after charging."

"Will it work now?"

"Like new; would you like to try it?"

"Yes," I replied, but without enthusiasm. But I no sooner pressed the pedal than the cheerful hum which had first attracted me was heard, and the engine began to turn over.

"How do I know that it will work twenty-four hours from now?" I asked.

"You don't, but we will guarantee it, with reasonable care."

"All right," I said. "And now what do I owe you?"

"That depends upon you," said the cheerful manager. "If you will let us publish this story in our trade journal, and sign your name to it, we will gladly remit the bill."

"I don't think I understand," said I, with considerable dignity. "What story?"

"The story of the car that was charged five times in two weeks, and ran down each time forty-eight hours later."

"Well, what of it?"

"This of it. That I suppose it is the first time in the history of motoring, in which _the headlights have been left on for three weeks, burning night and day_!"

Yes, that is what had happened. The weather being continuously rainy in Ireland, I had covered the headlights so snugly that no light seeped through the covers, and then must carelessly have touched the button which lights them, and so had been exhausting the current as fast as it could be generated!!! I paid my bill and kept the story for you!

The manager evidently felt he "owed me one," for, as he handed me the receipt he said: "I am sorry you would not let us have that story to print. I was thinking of calling it 'One Every Minute.'"

XXXVII

ANGLIA OR FRONTENAC?

You will be surprised to learn that the car is on the dock at Tilbury, boxed and waiting for the _Georgic_ to sail, and that we are returning on the _Adriatic_ in about a week!

"What has happened?" I can imagine you saying. Well, so much has happened that I hardly know where to begin!

What do you suppose Ruth had to tell me when I reached the hotel? Perhaps you have guessed. Yes, our dearest hopes are at length--please God--to be realized.

Ruth had not been quite like herself since the breakdown at Ross, and had written Maud, who at once said there was but one man in the world for her to see--you know what women are about their pet doctors! So, as you already have been told, Maud hastened to Barchester, I was bundled out of the way, and the two sisters came to town and saw the great man.

"He was perfectly lovely," said Ruth to me, her eyes full of tears.

"How old is he?" I suspiciously asked.

"He looked like papa," said Ruth, and burst into tears.

Well, the important matter is that he told her she was not mistaken but urged her to take great care of herself.

She asked if she might motor?

"It would be better," he replied, for her to "job a brougham," while she was in town, because the taxi men drove so recklessly.

"But what about motoring in the country?"

"With a very careful driver, and on smooth roads I should have no objection to a few miles a day. But, indeed, you cannot be too careful."

When I heard that I turned cold! "A careful driver and smooth roads!" I thought of the hill at Sawley and the sidewalk at Shrewsbury, the "narrer road" in Ireland with the leap to the top of the hedge, and of the railway crossing!

I hurried to the garage and drove the car--not across London this time, but--around it, and came to Tilbury as soon as I could. I was afraid the car might do us an injury if it were not quickly boxed!

So our journey has come to an unexpected end, and you will have to read no more letters, for we shall be home, I hope, almost as soon as this reaches you. Now that my face is turned homeward I am impatient to arrive. I want to see the dear people and to get to work once more on the noisy old corner. And, above all, I want to drop into the study after working hours--say between eleven and twelve at night, and when the pipes are drawing well, listen to you talk. "No," I can fancy you saying, "you don't want to listen, you want to talk!"

Well, perhaps both! But before I see you I want to make a sort of _Apologia_ for the letters I have written you.

I am ashamed to think how flippant they must have seemed. But, indeed, while I dwelt upon the ridiculous side, thinking it might amuse you in your temporary blindness, you will not think so ill of me as to suppose that I am unable to appreciate the most wonderful people in history--bar one! though the best in that one came out of this little island. As the writer of the Epistles to the Hebrews might have said: "America was in the loins of England when the foundations of democracy were laid!"

We Americans see the humorous side of the feudal system which survives in the domestic life of England, but no thoughtful man can fail to be filled with admiration for the way England has guarded the "rights of man" far better than they are guarded with us.

The rights of the minority are disregarded with us, but in England it is not so. It is not so much a deliberate spirit of compromise which is the source of England's strength, but rather an automatic arrangement which nature directs toward compensation. Just as--I think I have said this before, but no matter--in a pendulum there are metals of different expanding degrees, so in England the individual is merged in the family to an extent we can hardly imagine, because with us the intense individuality of the people shows itself in the family in such a way that it is a question how long the family can exist. On the other hand, in England, when the individual does emerge from the family, he becomes far more of a political personality than with us.

Then see how much we have to learn from them in the matter of education. I have no doubt our public schools are superior to the English board schools. But when it comes to the education of those who ought to be the leaders of the people, we cannot compare with them. Boys sent to Winchester, Eton, Harrow, Rugby and other great "public" schools may not have the variety of studies of which our boys get a smattering, but how much better are their minds trained than are our boys'! There is a popular outcry just now about the time wasted on the "dead" languages. But it is forgotten that, apart from the benefit that comes from knowing the best that the ancient world thought, the public school man has learned to use his Greek and Latin as "top dressing" to enrich his style, and so is able to express himself in a clear and concise way which is the envy of all students of speech.

Undoubtedly, this education has been too much the privilege of the favored few, but on the other hand it has tended to instil a sense of responsibility to the community which has given England the services of her most cultivated men, while we have had to put up with the "professional politician."

What England will do when democracy claims the right to share the best, remains to be seen. But that it has an immense advantage in having already set a high standard, no thoughtful man can deny. However, these are questions I must save to talk about when we meet, which I am glad to think will be soon.

I tell Ruth that, if it is a girl, she must be called "Anglia"; if a boy, we must name him "Frontenac." But she has settled the matter and, as usual, I submit. She says: "His name shall be called John."

Well, I cannot but think he will be born under an auspicious star, for his life began on our happy, sunny day!