The Adventures of a Suburbanite

by Ellis Parker Butler

VII. CHESTERFIELD WHITING

THE next morning Millington came over bright and early, and his face was aglow with joy.

“Get ready as quickly as you can,” he said, “for I will be ready to start for Port Lafayette in a few minutes. The automobile is in perfect order, and we should have a splendid trip. She isn't knocking at all.” This knocking, which was located in the motor-case, or hood, was one of the most reliable noises of all those for which Millington listened when he started the engine of his automobile. He was very fond of it, and it was one of the heartiest knockings I ever heard in an automobile. It was like the hiccoughs, only more strenuous. It was as if a giant had been shut in the motor by mistake and was trying to knock the whole affair to pieces. The knock came about every eight seconds, lightly at first, getting stronger and stronger until it made the fore-end of the automobile bounce up a foot or eighteen inches at each knock.

Millington loved all the sounds of trouble, but this knocking gave him the most pleasure and put him in his pleasantest mood, for he could never quite discover the cause of it. When everything else was in perfect order the knock remained. He would do everything any man could think of to cure it, but the machine would continue to knock. I remember he even went so far as to put a new inner tube in a tire once, to see if that would have any effect, but it did not. But there were plenty of other noises, too. Millington once told me he had classified and scheduled four hundred and eighteen separate noises of disorder that he had heard in that one automobile, and that did not include any that might be another noise for the same disorders. And some days he would hear the whole four hundred and eighteen before we had gone a block. Those were his happy days.

But this morning Millington came over bright and early. Isobel was just putting a cake in the oven, and she only took time to tell Jane, or Sophie, or whoever happened to be our maid that week, that she would be back in time to take the cake out, and then we went over to Millington's garage.

Mrs. Millington, was already in the automobile, and Isobel and I got in, and Millington opened the throttle and the machine ran down the road to the street as lightly and skimmingly as a swallow. It glided into the street noiselessly and headed for Port Lafayette like a thing alive. I noticed that Millington looked anxious, but I thought nothing of it at the time. His brow was drawn into a frown, and from moment to moment he pulled his cap farther and farther down over his eyes. He leaned far over the side of the car. He listened so closely that his ears twitched.

Mrs. Millington and Isobel were chatting merrily on the rear seat, and I was just turning to cast them a word, when the car came to a stop. I turned to Milllington instantly, ready to catch the pleasant bit of humour he usually let fall when he began to dig out his wrenches and pliers, but his face wore a glare of anger. His jaws were set, and he was muttering low, intense curses. I have seldom seen a man more demoniacal than Millington was at that moment. I asked him, merrily, what was the matter with the old junk shop this time, but instead of his usual chipper repartee, that “the old tea kettle has the epizootic,” he gave me one ferocious glance in which murder was plainly to be seen.

Without a word he began walking around the automobile, eyeing it maliciously, and every time he passed a tire he kicked it as hard as he could. Then he began opening all the opening parts, and when he had opened them all and had peered into them long and angrily he went over to the curb and sat down and swore. Isobel and Mrs. Millington politely stuffed their handkerchiefs in their ears, but I went over to Millington and spoke to him as man to man.

“Millington,” I said severely, “calm down! I am surprised. Time and again I have started for Port Lafayette with you, and time and again we have paused all day while you repaired the automobile. Much as I have wished to go to Port Lafayette I have never complained, because you have always been better company while repairing the machine than at any other time. But this I cannot stand. If you continue to act this way I shall never again go toward Port Lafayette with you. Brace up, and repair the machine.”

Millington's only answer was a curse.