Three Elephant Power | Page 4

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.
"So Henery he says that this is a twenty mongrel -- only a four-cylinder engine; and nobody drops to what she is till Henery goes out one Sunday and waits for the big Napier that Scotty used to drive -- it belonged to the same bloke wot owned that big racehorse wot won all the races. So Henery and Scotty they have a fair go round the park while both their bosses is at church, and Henery beat him out o' sight -- fair lost him -- and so Henery was reckoned the boss of the road. No one would take him on after that."
A nasty creek-crossing here required Alfred's attention. A little girl, carrying a billy-can of water, stood by the stepping stones, and smiled shyly as we passed. Alfred waved her a salute quite as though he were an ordinary human being. I felt comforted. He had his moments of relaxation evidently, and his affections like other people.
"What happened to Henry and the ninety-horse machine?" I asked. "And where does the elephant come in?"
Alfred smiled pityingly.
"Ain't I tellin' yer," he said. "You wouldn't understand if I didn't tell yer how he got the car and all that. So here's Henery," he went on, "with old John Bull goin' about in the fastest car in Australia, and old John, he's a quiet old geezer, that wouldn't drive faster than the regulations for anything, and that short-sighted he can't see to the side of the road. So what does Henery do? He fixes up the speed-indicator -- puts a new face on it, so that when the car is doing thirty, the indicator only shows fifteen, and twenty for forty, and so on. So out they'd go, and if Henery knew there was a big car in front of him, he'd let out to