It was a month ago, I think, that the petrol and oil tanks were empty; but, I have forbidden Louis, my mechanic, to go and make sure, and enter the cage of that savage beast.
We have peace now, but Klotz is still there.
Louis has put an end to the philosophical remarks which were ready to flow from my pen. He came in suddenly, and he said to me with his eyes starting from his head, “Monsieur, monsieur, come and see the 80 h. p. car.”
I did not wait to be told more, but rushed out.
On the staircase the servant confessed to me that he had ventured to open the door of the coach-house, because for some time a bad smell had been coming out of it. Indeed the stench of the courtyard itself was sickening.
Louis exclaimed in a tone almost of admiration:
“That’s it. A nice stink, isn’t it, sir?” and we entered the box.
So strange did the car look, that at first I could hardly recognize it.
Sunk on its deflated tires, it had lost its shape, as if it had been a car of half-molten wax. The levers were bent over like bars of india rubber. The head lamps were battered and out of shape, and their lenses, bluish and sticky, were like the bleared eyes of the dead.