Parkes saw that for the first time during the interview Lord Stranleigh began to show interest, reserved though it was.
“Do you know anything about cars?” asked his lordship.
“I can take apart any motor in the market, and put it together again, always leaving it a little better than when I found it.”
“And this machine—invented by the Detroit man—does it fill the bill?”
“It’s the best motor in the world to-day,” asserted Parkes, with a return of his old confidence.
Stranleigh smiled slightly.
“I think,” he said, “you have been very successful in catching the enthusiasm of America. You deal glibly with superlatives. Mr. Sterling is the most remarkable man on earth, Detroit the most beautiful city on the globe, and your motor-car beats the universe.”
“Well, my lord, I don’t disclaim the superlatives, but I insist on their truth. As I said, I deal in truth, and have suffered somewhat in pocket by doing so.”
A slight shade of perplexity came into the young earl’s face. There was something deferential in the tone used by Parkes when he enunciated the phrase “my lord,” which Stranleigh did not like. Neither phrase nor tone would have been used by any person in his own circle of acquaintance addressing another in the same set. His former distrust was again aroused. As he remained silent, Parkes went on—
“You need not take my word for the automobile, which after all is the crux of the situation. I have one of them here in New York. I tested it very fully on the way from Detroit to this city, travelling in it the whole distance. Let me take you for a drive. You doubtless know all about a motor-car, for I was told in London that you owned at least a dozen of them.”