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The War in the Air Chapter 2 Parts 1 & 2 · The H. G. Wells Library

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Speaker 1: Chapter two, Parts one and two of War in the Air.
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Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings were in
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Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Frank Booker. War in
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Speaker 1: the Air by H. G. Wells, Chapter two, Parts one
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Speaker 1: and two. It did not occur to either Tom or
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Speaker 1: Bert Smallways that this remarkable aerial performance of mister Butteridge
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Speaker 1: was likely to affect either of their lives in any
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Speaker 1: special manner, that it would in any way single them
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Speaker 1: out from the millions about them. And when they had
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Speaker 1: witnessed it from the crest of bun Hill, and seen
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Speaker 1: the flylike mechanism, its rotating plains of golden haze in
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Speaker 1: the sunset, sank humming to the harbor of its shed
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Speaker 1: again they turned back towards the sunken green grocery beneath
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Speaker 1: the great iron standard of the London to Brighton Monterey,
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Speaker 1: and their minds reverted to the discussion that had engaged
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Speaker 1: them before mister Buttridge's triumph had come in sight out
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Speaker 1: of the London Haze. It was a difficult and unsuccessful discussion.
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Speaker 1: They had to carry it on in shouts because of
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Speaker 1: the moaning and roaring of the gyroscopic motor cars that
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Speaker 1: traversed the high streets, and in its nature it was contentious.
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Speaker 1: In private. The Rub business was in difficulties, and Grubb,
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Speaker 1: in a moment of financial eloquence, had given a half
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Speaker 1: share in it to Bert, whose relation with his employer
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Speaker 1: had been for some time unsalaried and polish and informal.
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Speaker 1: Bert was trying to impress Tom with the idea that
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Speaker 1: the reconstructed Grub and Small Ways often unprecedented and unparalleled
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Speaker 1: opportunities to the judicious small investor. It was coming home
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Speaker 1: to Bert as though it were an entirely new fact
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Speaker 1: that Tom was singularly impervious to ideas. In the end,
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Speaker 1: he put the financial is shoes on one side, and
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Speaker 1: making the thing entirely a matter of fraternal affection, succeeded
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Speaker 1: in borrowing a sovereign on the security of his word
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Speaker 1: of honor. The firm of Grub and Smallways. Formerly Grub
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Speaker 1: had indeed been singularly unlucky in the last year or so.
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Speaker 1: For many years, the business had struggled along with a
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Speaker 1: flavor of romantic insecurity in a small dissolute looking shop
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Speaker 1: in the high Street, adorned with brilliantly colored advertisements of cycles,
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Speaker 1: a display of bells, trouser clips, oil cans, pump clips,
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Speaker 1: flame cases, wallets and other accessories, and the announcement of
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Speaker 1: bicycles on hire, repairs, free inflation, petrol and similar attractions.
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Speaker 1: They were agents for several obscure makes of bicycle. Two
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Speaker 1: samples constituted the stock, and occasionally they affected a sale.
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Speaker 1: They also repaired punctures and did their best, though luck
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Speaker 1: was not always on their side with any other repairing
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Speaker 1: that was brought to them. They handled a line of
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Speaker 1: cheap rambophones and did a little with musical boxes. The
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Speaker 1: staple of their business was, however, the letting of bicycles
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Speaker 1: on hire. It was a singular trade, obeying no known
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Speaker 1: commercial or economic principles, indeed no principles. There was a
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Speaker 1: stock of ladies and gentlemen's bicycles in a state of
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Speaker 1: disrepair that passes description, and these the hiring stock, were
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Speaker 1: led to unexacting and reckless people, inexpert in the things
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Speaker 1: of this world, at a nominal rate of one shilling
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Speaker 1: for the first hour and sixpence for hour afterwards. But
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Speaker 1: rarely there were no fixed prices, and insistent boys could
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Speaker 1: get bicycles and the thrill of danger for an hour
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Speaker 1: for so low a summers threpence, provided they could convince
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Speaker 1: Grubb that that was all they had. The saddle and
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Speaker 1: handlebar were then sketchily adjusted by Grubb, a deposit exacted,
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Speaker 1: except in the case of familiar boys, the machine lubricated,
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Speaker 1: and the adventurer started upon his career. Usually he or
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Speaker 1: she came back, but at times when the accident was
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Speaker 1: serious burt her Grub had to go out and fetch
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Speaker 1: the machine home. Hire was always charged up to the
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Speaker 1: hour of return to the shop and deducted from the deposit.
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Speaker 1: It was rare that a bicycle started out from their
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Speaker 1: hands in a state of pedantic efficiency. Romantic possibilities of
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Speaker 1: accident lurked in the worn thread of the screw that
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Speaker 1: adjusted the saddle, in the precarious pedals, in the loose
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Speaker 1: knit chain in the handlebars. Above all the brakes and tires,
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Speaker 1: tappings and clankings, and strange rhythmic creakings awoke as the
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Speaker 1: intrepid hier pedaled out into the country. Then perhaps the
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Speaker 1: bell would jam, or a brake failed to act on
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Speaker 1: a hill, or the seat pillar would get loose and
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Speaker 1: the saddle dropped three or four inches with a disconcerting bump.
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Speaker 1: Or the loose and rattling shap would jump the cogs
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Speaker 1: of the chain wheel as the machine ran downhill, and
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Speaker 1: so bring the mechanism to an abrupt and disastrous stop
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Speaker 1: without at the same time arresting the forward momentum of
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Speaker 1: the rider. Or a tire would bang or sigh quietly
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Speaker 1: and give up the struggle for efficiency. When the hier returned,
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Speaker 1: a heated pedestrian grub would ignore all verbal complaints and
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Speaker 1: examine the machine gravely. This igne had fair usage. He
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Speaker 1: used to begin He became a mild embodiment of the
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Speaker 1: spirit of reason. I can't expect a bicycle to take
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Speaker 1: you up in its arms and carry you. He used
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Speaker 1: to say. You got to show intelligence, after all, it's machinery.
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Speaker 1: Sometimes the process of liquidating the consequent claims bordered on violence.
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Speaker 1: It was always very rhetorical and often a trying affair.
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Speaker 1: But in these progressive times you have to make a
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Speaker 1: noise to get a living. It is often hard work.
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Speaker 1: But nevertheless, this hiring was a fairly steady source of profit,
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Speaker 1: until one day all the panes in the window and
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Speaker 1: door were broken, and the stock on sail in the
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Speaker 1: window greatly damaged and disordered by two over critical hirers
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Speaker 1: with no sense of rhetorical irrelevance. They were big coarse
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Speaker 1: stokers from Gravesend. One was annoyed because his left pedal
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Speaker 1: had come off, and the other because his tire had
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Speaker 1: become deflated. Small and indeed negligible accidents by bun Hills
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Speaker 1: standards due entirely to the ungentle handling of the delicate
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Speaker 1: machines entrusted to them, and they failed to see clearly
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Speaker 1: how they put themselves in the wrong By this method
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Speaker 1: of argument, it is a poor way of convincing a
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Speaker 1: man that he has let you a defective machine to
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Speaker 1: throw his foot pump about his shop and take his
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Speaker 1: stock of gongs outside in order to return them through
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Speaker 1: the window panes. It carried no real conviction to the
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Speaker 1: minds of either Grub or Bert. It only irritated and
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Speaker 1: vexed them. One quarrel makes many, and this unpleasantness led
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Speaker 1: to a violent dispute between Grub and the landlord upon
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Speaker 1: the moral aspects of and legal responsibility for the consequent
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Speaker 1: reglazing in the end, grub and small ways were put
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Speaker 1: to the expense of a strategic nocturnal removal to another position.
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Speaker 1: It was a position they had long considered. It was
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Speaker 1: a small shed like shop with a plate glass window
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Speaker 1: and one room behind, just at the sharp bend in
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Speaker 1: the road at the bottom of bun Hill. And here
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Speaker 1: they struggled along bravely in spite of persistent annoyance from
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Speaker 1: their former landlord, hoping for certain eventualities the peculiar situation
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Speaker 1: of the shop seemed to promise. Here too, they were
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Speaker 1: doomed to disappointment. The high Road from London to Brighton
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Speaker 1: that ran through bun Hill was, like the British Empire
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Speaker 1: or the British Constitution, a thing that had grown to
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Speaker 1: its present importance. Unlike any other roads in Europe, the
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Speaker 1: British high roads have never been subjected to any original
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Speaker 1: attempts to grade or straighten them out, and to that
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Speaker 1: no doubt, their peculiar picturesqueness is to be ascribed. The
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Speaker 1: old bun Hill high Street drops at its end for
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Speaker 1: perhaps eighty or a hundred feet of descent, at an
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Speaker 1: angle of one in five turns at right angles to
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Speaker 1: the left, runs in a curve for about thirty yards
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Speaker 1: to a brick bridge over the dried ditch that had
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Speaker 1: once been the Otterbourne, and then bends sharply to the
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Speaker 1: right again around a dense clump of trees, and goes
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Speaker 1: on a simple, straightforward, peaceful high road. There had been
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Speaker 1: one or two horse and van and bicycle accidents in
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Speaker 1: the place before the sharp burt and grub cook was built,
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Speaker 1: And to be frank, it was the probability of others
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Speaker 1: that attracted them to it. Its possibilities had come to
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Speaker 1: them first with a humorous flavor. It is one of
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Speaker 1: the places where a champmy gin I live in bar keeping,
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Speaker 1: said Grubb. You can't get a living keeping ends, said Bert.
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Speaker 1: You'd keep the end and have it spatchcock, said Grubb.
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Speaker 1: The motor chaps would pay for it. When they really
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Speaker 1: came to take the place, they remembered this conversation. Hens, however,
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Speaker 1: were out of the question. There was no place for
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Speaker 1: a run unless they had it in the shop. It
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Speaker 1: would have been obviously out of place there. The shop
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Speaker 1: was much more modern than their former one and had
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Speaker 1: a plate glass front. Sooner or light, said Bert, we
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Speaker 1: shall get a motor car through this. It's all right,
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Speaker 1: said grub compensation. I don't mind when that motor car
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Speaker 1: comes along. I don't mind if it gives me a
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Speaker 1: shock to the system. And meanwhile, said Bert with great artfulness,
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Speaker 1: I'm going to buy myself a dog. He did. He
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Speaker 1: bought three in succession. He surprised the people at the
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Speaker 1: dog's home in Buttersey by demanding a deaf Retriever and
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Speaker 1: rejecting every candidate that pricked up its ears. I want
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Speaker 1: a good death, slow moving dog, he said, A dog
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Speaker 1: that doesn't put himself out for things they displayed inconvenient curiosity.
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Speaker 1: They declared a great scarcity of deaf dogs. You'll see,
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Speaker 1: they said. Dogs are not death. Man's gonna be, said Bert.
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Speaker 1: All had dogs that aren't death. All I want it's
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Speaker 1: like this, you see, I sell gramophones naturally. I want
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Speaker 1: to make him talk and tootle a bit, to show
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Speaker 1: a morph where a dog that isn't deaf doesn't like it,
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Speaker 1: gets excited, smells around, barks, growls, now upsets the customers. See.
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Speaker 1: Then a dog that has got his earing fancies things,
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Speaker 1: makes burglars out, passing tramps, wants to fight every motor
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Speaker 1: that makes a whiz. All very well if you are
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Speaker 1: livening up, But our place is lively enough. I don't
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Speaker 1: want a dog of that sort. I want a quiet dog.
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Speaker 1: In he end, he got three in succession, but none
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Speaker 1: of them turned out well. The first straight off into
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Speaker 1: the heeding no appeals. A second was killed in a
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Speaker 1: night by a fruit motor wagon, which fled before Grub
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Speaker 1: could get down. The third got itself entangled in the
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Speaker 1: front wheel of a passing cyclist who came through the
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Speaker 1: plate glass and proved to be an actor out of
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Speaker 1: work and an undischarged bankrupt. He demanded compensation for some
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Speaker 1: fancied injury. Would hear nothing of the valuable dog he
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Speaker 1: had killed or the window he had broken. Obliged Grub
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Speaker 1: by sheer physical obduracy to straighten his buckled front wheel,
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Speaker 1: and pestered the struggling firm with a series of inhumanely
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Speaker 1: worded solicitor's letter. Rubb answered them stingingly and put himself
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Speaker 1: bert thought in the wrong. Affairs got more and more
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Speaker 1: exasperating and strained. Under these pressures. The window was boarded up,
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Speaker 1: and unpleasant altercations about their delay in repairing it with
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Speaker 1: the new landlord, a bun hill butcher, and a loud, bellowing,
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Speaker 1: unreasonable person at that served to remind them of their
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Speaker 1: unsettled troubles with the old. Things were at this pitch
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Speaker 1: when Bert bethought himself of creating a sort of Devonshire
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Speaker 1: capital in the business for the benefit of Tom. But
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Speaker 1: as I have said, Tom had no enterprise in his composition.
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Speaker 1: His idea of investment was the stocking. He bribed his
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Speaker 1: brother not to keep the offer open, and then ill
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Speaker 1: luck made its last lunge at their crumbling business and
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Speaker 1: brought it to the ground. It is a poor heart
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Speaker 1: that never rejoices, and whitsontide had an air of coming
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Speaker 1: as an agreeable break in the business complications of Grubb
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Speaker 1: and small Ways. Encouraged by the practical outcome of Bert's
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Speaker 1: negotiations with his brother, and by the fact that half
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Speaker 1: the hiring stock was out from Saturday to Monday, they
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Speaker 1: decided to ignore the residuum of hiring trade on Sunday
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Speaker 1: and devote that day to much needed relaxation and refreshment,
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Speaker 1: to have, in fact an unstinted good time. A bino
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Speaker 1: on whit Sunday and returned invigorated to grapple with the
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Speaker 1: difficulties and the bank holiday repairs on Monday, no good
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Speaker 1: thing was ever done by exhausted and dispirited men. It
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Speaker 1: happened that they had made the acquaintance of two young
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Speaker 1: ladies in employment in Clapham, Miss Flossi Bright and miss
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Speaker 1: Edna Bunthorne, And it was resolved therefore to make a
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Speaker 1: cheerful little cyclist party of four into the heart of
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Speaker 1: Kent and to picnic and spend an indolent afternoon and
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Speaker 1: evening among the trees and bracken between Ashford and Maidstone.
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Speaker 1: Miss Bright could ride a bicycle, and a machine was
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Speaker 1: found for her, not among the hiring stock, but specifically
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Speaker 1: in the sample held for sale. Miss Bunthorne, whom Bert
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Speaker 1: particularly affected, could not ride, and so with some difficulty
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Speaker 1: he hired a basket worked trailer from the big business
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Speaker 1: of Rays in the Clapham Road. To see our young men,
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Speaker 1: brightly dressed and cigarettes alight, wheeling off to the rendezvous,
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Speaker 1: grub guiding the lady's machine beside him with one skillful hand,
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Speaker 1: and Bert tuf Touffing steadily was to realize how pluck
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Speaker 1: may triumph even over insolvency their landlord, the butchers said
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Speaker 1: as they passed, and shouted go it in a loud,
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Speaker 1: savage tone to their receding backs. Much they cared. The
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Speaker 1: weather was fine, and though they were on their way
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Speaker 1: southward before nine o'clock, there was already a great multitude
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Speaker 1: of holiday people abroad. Upon the roads. There were quantities
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Speaker 1: of young men and women on bicycles and motor bicycles,
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Speaker 1: and a majority of gyroscopic motor cars running bicycle fashion
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Speaker 1: on two wheels, mingled with old fashioned four wheeled traffic.
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Speaker 1: Bank Holiday times always bring out old store away vehicles
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Speaker 1: and odd people. One saw tricars and electric programs and
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Speaker 1: dilapidated old racing cars with huge pneumatic tires. Once our
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Speaker 1: holiday maker saw horse and cart, and once a youth
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Speaker 1: riding a black horse amidst the badinage of a passers by.
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Speaker 1: And there were several navigable gas airships, not to mention
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Speaker 1: balloons in the air. It was all immensely interesting and
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Speaker 1: refreshing after the dark anxieties of the shop. Edna wore
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Speaker 1: a brown straw hat with puppies that suited her admirably
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Speaker 1: and sat in the trailer like a queen, and the
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Speaker 1: eight year old motor bicycle ran like a thing of yesterday.
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Speaker 1: Little it seemed to matter to mister Bert's small ways
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Speaker 1: that a newspaper placard proclaimed Germany denounces the Monroe doctrine
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Speaker 1: ambiguous attitude of Japan. What will Britain do? Is it war?
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Speaker 1: The sort of thing was always going on, and on holidays,
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Speaker 1: one disregarded it as a matter of course. Week days,
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Speaker 1: in the slack time after the midday meal, then perhaps
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Speaker 1: Mum might worry about the empire and international politics. But
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Speaker 1: not on a sunny sunday with a pretty girl trailing
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Speaker 1: behind one an envious cyclists trying to race you. Nor
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Speaker 1: did our young people attach any great importance to the
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Speaker 1: flitting suggestions of military activity they glimpsed, ever and again.
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Speaker 1: Near Maidstone they came on a string of eleven motor
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Speaker 1: guns of peculiar construction, halted by the roadside, with a
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Speaker 1: number of businesslike engineers grouped about them, watching through field
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Speaker 1: glasses some sort of entrenchment that was going on near
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Speaker 1: the crest of the downs. It signified nothing to Bert,
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Speaker 1: what's up? Said Edna oh Maneuvers, said Bert, Oh, I
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Speaker 1: thought they did them at Easter, said Edna, and troubled
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Speaker 1: no more. The last great British war, the Boer War,
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Speaker 1: was over and forgotten, and the public had lost the
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Speaker 1: fashion of expert military criticism. Ah four young people picnick cheerfully,
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Speaker 1: and were happy, in the manner of a happiness that
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Speaker 1: was an ancient mode. In Nineveh, eyes were bright, Grubb
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Speaker 1: was funny and almost witty, and Bert achieved epigrams. The
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Speaker 1: hedges were full of honeysuckle and dog roses in the woods.
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Speaker 1: The distant toot of the traffic on the dust hazy
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Speaker 1: high road might have been no more than the horns
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Speaker 1: of Elfland. They laughed and gossiped, and picked flowers, and
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Speaker 1: made love and talked, and the girls smoked cigarettes. Also,
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Speaker 1: they scuffled playfully. Among other things, they talked aeronautics and
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Speaker 1: how they would come for a picnic together in Bert's
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Speaker 1: flying machine. Before ten years were out. The world seemed
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Speaker 1: full of amusing possibilities. That afternoon, they wondered what their
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Speaker 1: great grandparents would have thought of aeronautics. In the evening,
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Speaker 1: about seven, the party turned homeward, expecting no disaster, and
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Speaker 1: it was only on the crest of the downs between
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Speaker 1: Rotham and Kingsdown the disaster came. They had come up
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Speaker 1: the hill in the twilight. Bert was anxious to get
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Speaker 1: as far as possible before he lit, or attempted to light,
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Speaker 1: for the issue was a doubtful one his lamps, and
18:13
Speaker 1: they had scorched past a number of cyclists and by
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Speaker 1: a four wheeled motor car of the old style, lamed
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Speaker 1: by a deflated tire. Some dust had penetrated Bert's horn,
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Speaker 1: and the result was a curious, amusing wheezing sound had
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Speaker 1: got into his hank hank. For the sake of merriment
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Speaker 1: and glory, he was making this sound as much as possible,
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Speaker 1: and Edna was in fits of laughter. In the trailer.
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Speaker 1: They made a sort of rushing cheerfulness along the road
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Speaker 1: that affected their fellow travelers variously according to their temperaments.
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Speaker 1: She did notice a good lot of bluish, evil smelling
18:47
Speaker 1: smoke coming from about the bearings between his feet, but
18:51
Speaker 1: she thought this was one of the natural concomitants of
18:54
Speaker 1: molted fraction, and troubled no more about it until abruptly
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Speaker 1: it burst into a little yellow tip flame the plaits.
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Speaker 1: She screamed, but Bert had put on the brakes with
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Speaker 1: such suddenness that she found herself involved with his legs.
19:07
Speaker 1: As he dismounted. She got to the side of the
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Speaker 1: road and hastily readjusted her hat, which had suffered cow
19:14
Speaker 1: said Bert. He stood for some fatal seconds, watching the
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Speaker 1: petrol drip and catch, and the flame, which was now
19:21
Speaker 1: beginning to smell of an animal as well as oil,
19:24
Speaker 1: spread and grew. His chief idea was the sorrowful one
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Speaker 1: that he had not sold the machine second hand a
19:31
Speaker 1: year ago, and that he ought to have done so.
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Speaker 1: A good idea in its way, but not immediately helpful.
19:37
Speaker 1: He turned upon Edna. Sharply, get a lot of wet sand,
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Speaker 1: he said, and he wheeled the machine a little towards
19:42
Speaker 1: the side of the roadway and laid it down and
19:44
Speaker 1: looked about for a supply of wet sand. The flames
19:48
Speaker 1: received this as a helpful attention and made the most
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Speaker 1: of it. They seemed to brighten and the twilight to
19:54
Speaker 1: deepen about them. The road was a flinty road in
19:58
Speaker 1: the chalk country, and ill provided with sand. Edna accosted
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Speaker 1: a short, fat cyclist. We want what's sand, she said,
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Speaker 1: and added, how a motor's on fire? The short fat
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Speaker 1: cyclist stared blankly for a moment, and then, with a
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Speaker 1: helpful cry, began to scrabble in the road grit, whereupon
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Speaker 1: Bert and Edna also scrabbled in the road grit. Other
20:22
Speaker 1: cyclists arrived, dismounted and stood about, and their flamelet faces
20:26
Speaker 1: expressed satisfaction. Interest, curiosity waits sand, said the short fat man,
20:34
Speaker 1: scrabbling terribly, wor's sand. One joined him. They threw hard
20:39
Speaker 1: earned handfuls of road grit upon the flames, which accepted
20:43
Speaker 1: them with enthusiasm. Grubb arrived, riding hard. He were shouting something.
20:49
Speaker 1: He sprang off and threw his bicycle into the hedge.
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Speaker 1: Don't throw water on it, he said, Don't throw water
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Speaker 1: on it, he displayed, commanding presence of mind. He became
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Speaker 1: captain of the occasions. Others were glad to repeat the
21:03
Speaker 1: things he said and imitate his actions. Don't throw water
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Speaker 1: on it, they cried. Also, there was no water. Be
21:11
Speaker 1: it out, you fools, he said. He seized a rug
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Speaker 1: from the trailer. It was an Australian blanket, and Bert's
21:18
Speaker 1: went to coverlet and began to beat at the burning petrol.
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Speaker 1: For a wonderful minute. He seemed to succeed, but he
21:24
Speaker 1: scattered burning pools of petrol on the road, and others
21:28
Speaker 1: fired by his enthusiasm, imitated his action. Bert caught up
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Speaker 1: a trailer cushion and began to beat, And there was
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Speaker 1: another cushion and a tablecloth, and these also were seized.
21:38
Speaker 1: A young hero pulled off his jacket and joined the beating,
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Speaker 1: and for a moment there was less talking than hard breathing,
21:44
Speaker 1: and a tremendous flapping Flossi arrived on the outskirts of
21:48
Speaker 1: the crowd, cried Hell, my God, and burst loudly into tears. Help,
21:54
Speaker 1: she said, and fire. The lame motor car arrived and
21:59
Speaker 1: stopped in consternation. A tall, goggled, gray haired man who
22:04
Speaker 1: was driving in quiet with an Oxford intonation and a clear,
22:09
Speaker 1: careful enunciation. Can we help it all? It became manifest
22:14
Speaker 1: that the rug, the tablecloth, the cushion and the jacket
22:18
Speaker 1: were getting smeared with petrol and burning. The soul seemed
22:22
Speaker 1: to go out of the cushion. Bert was swaying, and
22:26
Speaker 1: the air was full of feathers like a snowstorm. In
22:30
Speaker 1: the still twilight. Bert had got very dusty and sweaty,
22:36
Speaker 1: and strenuous. It seemed to him his weapon had been
22:39
Speaker 1: wrested from him. At the moment of victory. The fire
22:42
Speaker 1: lay like a dying thing, close to the ground and wicked.
22:45
Speaker 1: It gave a leap of anguish at every whack of
22:47
Speaker 1: the beaters. But now Grubb had gone off to stamp
22:50
Speaker 1: out the burning blanket. The others were lacking. Just at
22:53
Speaker 1: the moment of victory. One had dropped the cushion and
22:56
Speaker 1: was running to the motor car. Here, cried Burt Vun.
23:01
Speaker 1: He flung the deflated burting rags of cushioned aside, whipped
23:04
Speaker 1: off his jacket and sprang at the flames with a shout.
23:08
Speaker 1: He stamped into the ruin until flames run up his boots.
23:12
Speaker 1: Edna saw him a red lit hero and thought it
23:16
Speaker 1: was good to be a man. A bystander was hit
23:20
Speaker 1: by a hot happening flying out of the air, and
23:22
Speaker 1: then Bert thought of the papers in his pockets and
23:25
Speaker 1: staggered back, trying to extinguish his burning jacket. Checked, repulsed, dismayed,
23:32
Speaker 1: Edna was struck by the benevolent appearance of an elderly
23:35
Speaker 1: spectator in a silk hat and sabbatical garments. Ah, she
23:40
Speaker 1: cried to him. Help this young man, how can you
23:43
Speaker 1: stand and see it? A cry of the tarpaulin arose.
23:48
Speaker 1: An earnest looking man in a light gray cycling suit
23:52
Speaker 1: had suddenly appeared at the side of the lame motor
23:54
Speaker 1: car and addressed the owner. Have you a tarpaulin? He said, yes,
24:00
Speaker 1: said the gentlemanly man. Yes, we've got a tarpaulin. That's it,
24:03
Speaker 1: said the earnest looking man, and suddenly shouting, let's have
24:06
Speaker 1: it quick. The gentlemanly man, with feeble and pregatory gestures,
24:11
Speaker 1: and in a manner of a hypnotized person, produced an
24:15
Speaker 1: excellent large tarpaulin. Here cried the earnest looking man to
24:20
Speaker 1: grub catch hold. Then everybody realized that a new method
24:24
Speaker 1: was to be tried. A number of willing hands seized
24:26
Speaker 1: upon the Oxford gentleman's tarpaulin. The others stood away with
24:30
Speaker 1: approving noises. The tarpaulin was held over the burning bicycle
24:34
Speaker 1: like a canopy, and then smothered down upon it. We
24:39
Speaker 1: ought to have done this before, panted Grubb. There was
24:43
Speaker 1: a moment of triumph. The flames vanished. Everyone who could
24:46
Speaker 1: contrive to do so touched the edge of the tarpaulin.
24:49
Speaker 1: Bert held down the corner with two hands and a foot.
24:52
Speaker 1: The tarpaulin bulged up in the center, seemed to be
24:56
Speaker 1: suppressing triumphant exultation. Then it self approval became too much
25:01
Speaker 1: for it. It burst into a bright red smile in
25:04
Speaker 1: the center. It was exactly like the opening of a mouth.
25:07
Speaker 1: It laughed with a gust of flames. They were reflected
25:11
Speaker 1: redly in the observant goggles of the gentlemen who owned
25:13
Speaker 1: the tarpaulin. Everybody recoiled save the trailer. Cried some one,
25:20
Speaker 1: and that was the last sound in the battle. But
25:23
Speaker 1: the trailer could not be detached. Its wicker work had caught,
25:27
Speaker 1: and it was the last thing to burn. A sort
25:29
Speaker 1: of hush fell upon the gathering. The petrol burnt low,
25:32
Speaker 1: the wicker work trailer banged and crackled. The crowd divided
25:36
Speaker 1: itself into an outer circle of critics, advisers, and secondary
25:40
Speaker 1: characters who had played undistinguished parts or no parts at
25:43
Speaker 1: all in the affair, and a central group of heated
25:46
Speaker 1: and distressed principles. A young man with an inquiring mind
25:51
Speaker 1: and a considerable knowledge of motor bicycles fixed on to Grub,
25:55
Speaker 1: and wanted to argue that the thing could not have happened.
25:58
Speaker 1: Grub was short and inattentive with him, and the young
26:02
Speaker 1: man withdrew to the back of the crowd, and there
26:04
Speaker 1: told the benevolent old gentleman in the silk hat that
26:07
Speaker 1: people who went out on machines they didn't understand had
26:11
Speaker 1: only themselves to blame if things went wrong. The old
26:15
Speaker 1: gentleman let him talk for some time, and then remarked,
26:17
Speaker 1: in a tone of rapturous enjoyment, stone deaf and added
26:22
Speaker 1: nasty things. A rosy faced man in a straw hat
26:28
Speaker 1: claimed attention. Oh dead, say the front wheel, He said,
26:32
Speaker 1: you'd have had that tire catch too, if I hadn't
26:34
Speaker 1: kept it turning it around. It became manifest that this
26:38
Speaker 1: was so. The front wheel had retained its tire, was intact,
26:42
Speaker 1: was still rotating slowly among the blackened and twisted ruins
26:46
Speaker 1: of the rest of the machine. It adds something of
26:49
Speaker 1: that air of conscious virtue, of unimpeachable respectability that distinguishes
26:55
Speaker 1: a rent collector in a low neighborhood. And wheel's worth
26:59
Speaker 1: a power, said the rosy faced man, making a song
27:02
Speaker 1: of it. I'll keep it turning round. Newcomers kept arriving
27:07
Speaker 1: from the south with the question what's up, until it
27:10
Speaker 1: got on Grubb's nerves. London word. The crowd was constantly
27:14
Speaker 1: losing people. They would mount their various wheels with the
27:18
Speaker 1: satisfied manner of spectators who have had the best their
27:22
Speaker 1: voices would recede into the twilight. One would hear a
27:25
Speaker 1: laugh at the memory of this particularly salient incident, or
27:30
Speaker 1: that I'm afraid, said the gentleman of the motor car.
27:35
Speaker 1: My Tarpulin's a bit done for Grub admitted that the
27:39
Speaker 1: owner was the best judge of that. Nothing else I
27:43
Speaker 1: can do for you, said the gentleman of the motor car.
27:46
Speaker 1: It may be with the suspicion of irony, Bert was
27:50
Speaker 1: roused to action. Look here, he said, as my young lady,
27:54
Speaker 1: she ain't down by ten they lock her out. See well,
27:57
Speaker 1: all my money was in my jackie pocket, and it's
28:00
Speaker 1: all mixed up with the burnt stuff. And that still
28:02
Speaker 1: ought to touch is clap him out of your way.
28:07
Speaker 1: All in the day's work, said the gentleman with the
28:10
Speaker 1: motor car, and turned to Edna. Very pleased, indeed, he
28:13
Speaker 1: said if you'll come with us. We're late for dinner
28:16
Speaker 1: as it is, so it won't make much difference to
28:19
Speaker 1: us to go home by way of clapping. We'd better
28:21
Speaker 1: get the serpent. Anyhow, I'm afraid you'll find us a
28:24
Speaker 1: little slow. But what's Bert gonna do? Said Edna. I
28:30
Speaker 1: don't know that we can accommodate Bert, said the motor car. Gentlemen,
28:34
Speaker 1: though we're tremendously anxious to oblige, you couldn't take the
28:39
Speaker 1: old lot, said Bert, waving his hand at the debashed
28:43
Speaker 1: and blackened ruins on the ground. I'm awfully afraid our can't,
28:48
Speaker 1: said the Oxford Ben. Awfully sorry. You know. Then I'll
28:52
Speaker 1: have to stick here for a bit, said Bert. I
28:55
Speaker 1: got to see the thing through. You go on, Edna,
28:59
Speaker 1: don't like leave you Bert. You can't help it, Edna.
29:03
Speaker 1: The last Edna saw of Bert was his figure in
29:06
Speaker 1: charred and blackened shirt sleeves. Standing in the dusk. He
29:11
Speaker 1: was musing deeply by the mixed ironwork and ashes of
29:13
Speaker 1: his vanished motor bicycle, a melancholy figure. His retinue of
29:18
Speaker 1: spectators had shrunk now to half a dozen figures. Flossie
29:22
Speaker 1: and Grubb were preparing to follow her desertion. Cheer up
29:26
Speaker 1: old Bert cried Edna with artificial cheerfulness. So long, So long, Edna,
29:32
Speaker 1: says Bert, See you tomorrow, See you tomorrow, said Bert,
29:37
Speaker 1: though he was destined as a matter of fact, to
29:39
Speaker 1: see much of the habitable glow. Before he saw her again.
29:44
Speaker 1: Bert began to light matches from a burrowed box full
29:47
Speaker 1: and search for a half crown that still eluded him
29:50
Speaker 1: among the charred remains. His face was grave and melancholy.
29:55
Speaker 1: I wish that hadn't happened, said Flossie, riding on with Grubb.
30:00
Speaker 1: At last, Bert was left almost alone, a sad, blackened
30:05
Speaker 1: Promethean figure, cursed by the gift of fire. He had
30:10
Speaker 1: entertained vague ideas of hiring a cart, of achieving miraculous repairs,
30:15
Speaker 1: of still snatching some residual value from his one chief possession. Now,
30:22
Speaker 1: in the darkening night, he perceived a vanity of such intentions.
30:26
Speaker 1: Truth came to him bleakly, and laid her chill conviction
30:30
Speaker 1: upon him. He took hold of the handlebar, stood the
30:34
Speaker 1: thing up, tried to push it forward. The tireless hind
30:38
Speaker 1: wheel was jammed hopelessly, even as he feared. For a
30:43
Speaker 1: moment or so he stood upholding his machine a motionless despair. Then,
30:51
Speaker 1: with a great effort, he thrust the ruins from him
30:54
Speaker 1: into the ditch, kicked it once, regarded it for a moment,
30:58
Speaker 1: and turned his face resolutely londonward. He did not once
31:03
Speaker 1: look back. I see end of that game, said Bert.
31:08
Speaker 1: No more tough tuff tuff for Bert, smallways for a
31:11
Speaker 1: year or two. Good Bye holidays. Oh I orwas sold
31:17
Speaker 1: that blasted thing when I had a chance three years ago.
31:24
Speaker 1: End of Chapter two, Parts one and two. Recording by
31:29
Speaker 1: Frank Booker, Bangor Maine U s A.