Soon after eight I was aroused by Freddy’s acrobatic treble and the shrieks of an impossible check suit.
He mentioned that he was coming to breakfast with me as the men in his digs never came down till ten.
Just then the Pilot announced in a loud and penetrating voice that ‘a perspiring stinkocar had arrived outside’ and so I hastened on my dressing to the accompaniment of ‘The Miller’s Daughter,’ played by Freddy with one finger and the loud pedal down.
In the middle of the second kidney there was a loud report from the street, and Mrs. MacNab, whose cat consumes an abnormal quantity of our whisky, rushed into the room exclaiming that ‘the Chuffer had brought round the hengine.’
Hastily rising I ran down into the street and found a pair of legs performing strange antics on the kerbstone, while their owner’s head appeared to be in the petrol tank, at least a voice from that direction declared ‘the whole of the —— —— petrol has gone and (adjectived) itself away.’
This edifying remark was accompanied by a series of alarming though apparently harmless reports which did not in the least affect the equanimity of the person under the car.
By this time Freddy, having consumed ‘kidneys and bacon for three,’ appeared in the doorway, disguised in a mangy fur coat and a pair of hideous black goggles.
He straightway proceeded to haul the unknown out of the petrol tank by his legs, at the same time enquiring with unnecessary heat ‘Why they had not pumped that mess in at the shop?’
To which query the Chauffeur replied that ‘They never did nothink at the shop.’