Many were the heartburnings, the incompatibilities of temperament, of the parts thus yoked together. Whenever these dissentions brought matters to a standstill, I would have to get out and apply the monkey-wrench of peace.
Plury was hardly a noble car in either appearance or speed, yet I was genuinely fond of her. Her lamps had a wistful look—a look as innocent and helpless as that with which poached eggs gaze up at you before they die. As for her slowness, that made little difference; because her speedometer, geared presumably for a racing car, exaggerated. And, after all, what is speed but a number on a dial? While I saw "71" registered there I was not disturbed by the fact that bicyclists were passing me.
I admired her pluck. She would chunk along stoically, accepting other people's dust without complaint, when in a condition of health that would have prostrated any other machine. (Thoroughbreds do not show the greatest endurance.) Bravely she would drag herself home, after a hard afternoon's work, with a leak in her radiator and congestion in all her bearings.
I used to practice vivisection on her, taking her apart and putting her together in new ways. It was a fascinating kind of solitaire, solving the problem of what to do on rainy Sundays. In a few hours' time I could shuffle the parts and deal out an entirely new model. Under my care Plury changed her shape with ultrafashionable frequency. A model that I was particularly interested in trying out was number nine (i. e., the eighth transformation). This was such a daring rearrangement that it seemed too wonderful to be true. But it worked, and thrillingly. In this form Plury exceeded all her previous speed records. The speedometer dial registered 87, and a swarm of gnats had hard work keeping up with us.
Proceeding at this reckless pace, we approached a hilly curve marked "DANGER: DRIVE SLOWLY." I changed gear. The cogs emitted a grating, crunching sound, as of quartz in a stone-crusher, and then subsided. I got out to view their death grapple.
But I had no sooner set foot upon the ground than the roar of an infuriated claxon startled me so that I leaped clear aside into the ditch. In that instant a huge Fiat, armed with a brazen fender, swung around the curve and rammed Plury in the radiator.
Plury splattered like a charlotte russe hit by a sledgehammer. The road and neighboring fields were full of her.
The liveried chauffeur of the Fiat got out and began to brush the dust from the front of his car. A frightened fat man picked himself up from the floor of the tonneau and called to me, "Are you badly hurt?"
"No," I replied. "I'm all right, I think."
"Good!" he said, in a tone of great relief. "Then let's settle the damages at once, for I don't want this thing to get into the papers." With a shaky hand he drew out a checkbook. "What was the value of your car?"