Elizabeth Visits America | Page 3

brown eyes--and they twinkled at one, and he was very, very tall. "We hope to get to Dijon tonight," Uncle John said. "Can you tell us, sir, if we shall have any difficulty?" The American did not bother to raise his hat or any fuss, but just got out of his car and told the facts to Uncle John; and then he turned to the chauffeur, who was fumbling with the tyre--it was something complicated, not only just the bursting--and in a minute or two he was down in the mud giving such practical advice. And you never heard such slang! But I believe men like that sort of thing, as the chauffeur was not a bit offended at being interfered with.
When they had finished grovelling, he got in again, and Uncle John insisted upon exchanging cards with the stranger. He got out his from some pocket, but the American had not one. "By the living jingo," he said, "I've no bit of pasteboard handy--but my name is Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour--and you'll find me any day at the Nelson Building, Osages City, Nevada. This is my first visit to Europe." Perhaps I am not repeating exactly the right American, Mamma, but it was something like that. But I wish you could have seen him, I know you would have liked him as I did. Wait till I tell you what he did afterwards, then you will, anyway. "Anyway" is American--you see I have picked it up already!
We waved a kind of grateful goodbye and went our different ways, and beyond its raining most of the time we had a quick journey; but at last we felt in the dusk we were off the right road. Like all chauffeurs ours had whizzed past every notice of the direction--so carefully printed up as they are in France, too. From the way they behave one would think chauffeurs believe themselves to possess a sixth sense and can feel in some occult manner the right turns, as they never bother to look at sign posts, or condescend to ask the way like ordinary mortals. Ours did not so much as stop even when the lane got into a mere track, until, with the weight of Uncle John, Aunt Maria and me in the back seat, and the extra stones in the rumble, as he made a sensational backing turn into a fieldish looking place, (it was dark twilight) our hind wheels sunk in up to their axles,--and the poor machinery groaned in its endeavours to extricate us! We had to get out in the gloom and mud, and Aunt Maria looked almost pathetic in her elastic side "prunella" boots, edged with fur, white silk stockings and red quilted silk petticoat held up very high. But she was so good tempered over it all! She said when one had been married happily for fifty years, and was having one's honeymoon all over again--(she had forgotten the hysterics)--one ought not to grumble at trifles.
Meanwhile the hind wheels of the car sank deeper and deeper. I believe we should never have got out, and it would have been there still, if we had not heard a scream from a siren, and our American friend tore up again! It was pitch dark by now, and the valet, the chauffeur, and Uncle John were shoving and straining, and nothing was happening. Why he was returning this way, right out of the main road, he did not explain, but he jumped out and in a minute took command of the situation. He said, "If we had taken a waggon over the desert, we'd know how to fix up this in a shake." He sent his chauffeur back to the nearest village for some boards and a shovel, and then dug out to firm ground and got the boards under, all so neatly and quickly, and no one thought of disobeying him! And we were soon all packed into the car again none the worse. Then he said he also found he was obliged to go back and would show us the way as far as we liked. Uncle John was so grateful, and we started.
Tonnerre was all as far as we could get to-night, and about six o'clock we arrived at this hotel I am writing from.
Mr. Horatio Thomas Nelson Renour was a few yards in front of us. "Say, Lord Wordon," he said to Uncle John, "I guess this is no kind of a place your ladies have been accustomed to, but it's probably pretty decent in spite of appearances. I know these sort of little shanties, and they aren't half as bad as they look."
He took as much pains to shout down Aunt Maria's trumpet as Harry used in the beginning when he wanted to please me,