The Princess Passes

								

at once, I was conscious of improvement in mastering the touch of the
wheel. Soon, I was imitating a straight line with fair success,
subject to a few graceful deviations. I realised that, after all, we
were not going very fast, though my sensation at starting had been
that of hanging on to a streak of greased lightning.
I began to sigh for more worlds to conquer, and when Jack reminded me
that we were on the first speed, I pronounced myself equal to an
experiment with the second. He made me practice taking one hand from
the wheel, looking about me a little, and trying to keep the car
straight by feeling rather than sight. When I had accomplished these
feats, and had not brought the car to grief (even though we passed
several vehicles, and I was drawn by a demoniac influence to swerve
towards each one as if it had been the loadstone to my magnet, or the
candle to my moth), Jack finally consented to grant my request. He
told me clearly what to do, and I did it, or some inward servant of
myself did, whenever the master was within an ace of losing his head.
I pressed down the clutch-pedal, pulled the lever affectionately
towards me, and very gradually opened the throttle, so as not to
startle it. In spite of my caution, however, I thought for an instant
we were really going to get on the other side of the horizon, which
had been avoiding us for so long. We shot ahead alarmingly, but to my
intense relief, as well as surprise, I found that Jack had not
exaggerated. It was easier to steer on the second speed than on the
first. I had merely to tickle the wheel with my finger, to send us
gliding, swanlike, this way or that. To be sure, I did well-nigh run
over a chicken, but I would be prepared to argue with it till it was
black in the face (or resort to litigation, if necessary) that the
proper place for its blood would be on its own silly head, not mine.
Elated by my triumphs, I scarcely listened further to Jack's
directions; how, if I thought there was danger, all I had to do was
to unclutch, and put on the brake, whereupon the car would stop as if
by magic, as it had for Molly in the Fulham Road; how I must not
forget that the foot brakes had a way of obeying fiercely, and must
not be applied with violence; how I must remember to pull the brake
lever by my hand, towards me if I wanted to stop; how it acted on
expanding rings on the inside faces of drums, which were on the back
wheels (I pitied those poor, concealed faces, for the description was
neuralgic, somehow), and I could lock them at almost any speed.
"I want to get on the third, and then I'll try the fourth, thank you,"
I interpolated impatiently. "More-more! Faster, faster! Whew, this
knocks spots out of the Ice Run!"
"Let him have his way, Jack," cried Molly, speaking for the first
time. "Hurrah, the motor microbe is in his blood, and never, never
will he get it out again."
"Full speed ahead, then!" said Jack.
I took him at his word. I could have shouted for joy. Mercédès was