A Knight on Wheels Part 18

"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 a.s.sisted 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 Acc.u.mulator respectively.

There was an oil-reservoir, with a piston-rod protruding from the top, and a gla.s.s 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 a.s.sistance 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 acc.u.mulator, 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 acc.u.mulator 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 b.u.mp 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 dispa.s.sionately 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 abolis.h.i.+ng 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.