After this operation, I, mindful of our victims at Maidenhead, firmly declined to mount the car again unless Freddy gave up the steering wheel to the Chauffeur; this he did, and we soon reached Slough.
Shortly afterwards we entered the village of Little Pudley at thirty miles an hour, marking our passage by a slight entanglement with the village pump; however Freddy succeeded in jerking off the handle before it caught him in the wind, and so no harm was done beyond leaving a portion of our splash-board in the well. The calm of our progress through Hounslow and Chiswick was unbroken, and I was wiping the dust from my eyes preparatory to a gentle snooze, when without any warning except a violent shock, which threw my hat into the neighbouring gutter, the car stopped abruptly; and although we tried each of the handles in turn and subsequently all together, the sparrow-starver remained motionless.
Frederick then spoke.
When the air had cleared we discovered that the Chauffeur was again seeking the seclusion of his beloved petrol tank, but reappeared with astonishing rapidity just in time to avoid a shower of greasy black liquid which spread itself about the pavement.
Freddy shrieked ‘jump,’ and we jumped.
Immediately afterwards the car, groaning hideously, made with fearful speed for a saddler’s shop, and was only prevented from entering by an opportune collision with a lamp-post. This appeared to annoy the death-trap, for it blew out its bonnet and then reclined peacefully against a metropolitan water-trough, from which all efforts to move it were unavailing.
After a hasty palaver we consigned the dam-thing to the Chauffeur and made for the Shepherd’s Bush Tube. We journeyed as far as Notting Hill Gate, and there Freddy, having borrowed my few remaining shillings, left me and went in search of his female cousin. This compelled me to lunch with one Timmins, a man of the Inner Temple, honoured by my acquaintance, but as he had had no warning of my arrival I was obliged to make the best of two old chicken legs and some rather older Gorgonzola, and after borrowing a couple of sovereigns from him, I treated him to a theatre. On crossing Piccadilly, after the performance, we were surprised to see Freddy engaged in altercation with a cabman in front of the Criterion. We crossed over to speak to him and the guileless one seized the opportunity to borrow half a sovereign from Timmins, whose purse and patience are inexhaustible. Then having disposed of the quarrelsome Jehu we decided to take the Templar to dinner at the Cabanero, which invitation he readily accepted, possibly with the idea of getting some return for his money.
To fill up the time Timmins suggested the Aquarium, a place that both Freddy and I detest, but as we had borrowed about fifty shillings from the unfortunate man, we felt that this was the moment for a graceful concession.
On our arrival we let Timmins out of the hansom first, but in spite of this subtle move I was compelled to pay the cabby, and then firmly resisting an impassioned appeal from a golden-haired lady in the entrance to give her a bracelet or something else, we passed the turnstiles and made with one accord for the nearest bar.