My uncle replied:
“But, you are not obliged....”
“To begin with, I find the Grey Festival attracts me. I should like to watch the crowds a little longer. On such a day one gets the liveliest impressions of the manners of a people, and I feel, to-day, that I have the soul of an ethnologist.”
My uncle said, “You are joking, or else it is a mere whim.”
“In the second place, Uncle, whom could I trust with my car? The inn-keeper? The drunken tenant of a hovel full of clodhoppers in their cups? You surely do not imagine that I am going to leave a car worth twenty-five thousand francs, exposed for nine hours by the clock, to the tricks of a village on the spree! No, no, I prefer to watch my car myself.”
My uncle was not convinced of my sincerity. He wished to checkmate the little trick which I might be planning of going back to Fonval, either in my motor-car, or on a borrowed bicycle, with the intention of coming back to Grey in time for the 5.15—and that was just exactly the plan which I had thought of. The accursed savant nearly upset everything.
“You are right,” said he coldly, and he set his foot on the ground, and amid the crowd of holiday travelers in their Sunday best, raised the bonnet of the car, and looked at the engine minutely. I felt quite uncomfortable.
My uncle took out his knife—took the carburetor, and slipped some of the pieces into his pocket, and addressed me thus:
“There is your car, brought to a standstill,” said he, “but as you might make off in another way, I am going to give you something to do. On my return, you must show me the carburetor, completely restored, and fitted up with pieces of your own make. The blacksmith has not yet shut up his forge—he will lend you an anvil and vise; but he is a fool, and quite unable to help you. There will be enough there to keep you amused until 5.14.”
Perceiving that I did not seem to mind, he went on in a constrained tone: