The Lightning Conductor

The Lightning Conductor
The Strange Adventure of a Motor-Car
by C. N. and A. M. Williamson
Copyright, 1903, 1905
Henry Holt and Company
Twentieth Impression

TO THE REAL MONTIE

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER
IN THE OAK ROOM, THE "WHITE LION,"
COBHAM, SURREY, November 12.
Dear Shiny-headed Angel,
I hope you won't mind, but I've changed all my plans. I've bought an
automobile, or a motor-car, as they call it over here; and while I'm
writing to you, Aunt Mary is having nervous prostration on a sofa in a
corner at least a hundred years old--I mean the sofa, not the corner,
which is a good deal more. But perhaps I'd better explain.
Well, to begin with, some people we met on the steamer (they were an
archdeacon, with charming silk legs, and an archdeaconess who
snubbed us till it leaked out through that Aunt Mary that you were the
Chauncey Randolph) said if we wanted to see a thoroughly
characteristic English village, we ought to run out to Cobham; and we

ran--to-day.
Aunt Mary had one of her presentiments against the expedition, so I
was sure it would turn out nice. When we drove up to this lovely old
red-brick hotel, in a thing they call a fly because it crawls; there were
several automobiles starting off, and I can tell you I felt small--just as if
I were Miss Noah getting out the ark. (Were there any Miss Noahs, by
the way?)
One of the automobiles was different from any I've ever seen on our
side or this. It was high and dignified, like a chariot, and looked over
the heads of the others as the archdeaconess used to look over mine till
she heard whose daughter I was. A chauffeur was sitting on the front
seat, and a gorgeous man had jumped down and was giving him
directions. He wasn't looking my way, so I seized the opportunity to
snapshot him, as a souvenir of English scenery; but that tactless Kodak
of mine gave the loudest "click" you ever heard, and he turned his head
in time to suspect what had been happening. I swept past with my most
"haughty Lady Gwendolen" air, talking to Aunt Mary, and hoped I
shouldn't see him again. But we'd hardly got seated for lunch in a
beautiful old room, panelled from floor to ceiling with ancient oak,
when he came into the room, and Aunt Mary, who has a sneaking
weakness for titles (I suppose it's the effect of the English climate),
murmured that there was her ideal of a duke.
The Gorgeous Man strolled up and took a place at our table. He passed
Aunt Mary some things which she didn't want, and then began to throw
out a few conversational feelers. If you're a girl, and want fun in
England, it's no end of a pull being American; for if you do anything
that people think queer, they just sigh, and say, "Poor creature! she's
one of those mad Americans," and put you down as harmless. I don't
know whether an English girl would have talked or not, but I did; and
he knew lots of our friends, especially in Paris, and it was easy to see
he was a raving, tearing "swell," even if he wasn't exactly a duke. I
can't remember how it began, but really it was Aunt Mary and not I
who chattered about our trip, and how we were abroad for the first time,
and were going to "do" Europe as soon as we had "done" England.

The Gorgeous Man had lived in France (he seems to have lived nearly
everywhere, and to know everybody and everything worth knowing),
and, said he, "What a pity we couldn't do our tour on a motor-car!" At
that I became flippant, and inquired which, in his opinion, would be
more suitable as chauffeur--Aunt Mary or I; whereupon he announced
that he was not joking, but serious. We ought to have a motor-car and a
chauffeur. Then we might say, like Monte Cristo, "The world is mine."
He went on to tell of the wonderful journeys he'd made in his car,
"which we might have noticed outside." It seemed it was better than
any other sort of car in the world; in fact there was no other exactly like
it, as it had been made especially for him. You simply couldn't break it,
it was so strong; the engine would outlast two of any other kind; and
one of the advantages was that it had belts and a marvellous
arrangement called a "jockey pulley" to regulate the speed:
consequently it ran more "sweetly" (that was the word he used) than
gear-driven cars, which, according to him, jerk, and are noisy, break
easily, and do all sorts of