Such incidents make it clear that the automobile as an annihilator of space has established its reputation. In the days before the auto a drive of fifteen or twenty miles constituted a good Sunday's outing. To-day a man can leave New Rochelle at eight o'clock in the morning and pay a fine at Poughkeepsie at one in the afternoon, or he can leave Poughkeepsie at eight in the morning and at one in the afternoon be in the lock-up at New Rochelle.
What hurts the motorist's feelings most of all, however, is to be regarded by the public as a sort of licensed assassin. Yet almost any one can think of people who drive a car and take no pleasure in spilling blood. The common belief that automobile killing is a favourite sport among our best families seems to be based on the fact that in nine cases out of ten the occupants of a man-slaying automobile bear such well-known Knickerbocker names as Mr. William Moriarty, chauffeur; his friend, Mr. James Dugan, who is prominent in coal-heaving circles; and their friends, the Misses Mayme Schultz and Bessie Goldstein. At bottom, it would seem, most of the criticism directed against the automobile is based on its failure to take a hog and turn him into a gentleman. But in this respect automobiles are like many of our colleges. The comforting thing is that the life of the automobile hog is an uncertain one. Sooner or later he runs down a steep place into the sea, like certain of his species mentioned in the Bible, and the question adjusts itself.
Meanwhile, however, the decent motorist must suffer for the other's sins. A friend says: "The only time I dare be seen in my machine is between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Before that time people point me out as a 'joy-rider' returning from a night's debauch. After that time I am a 'joy-rider' bound for a night of it." The complaint rings true. The exhilaration aroused by a punctured tire in the open country gathers strength from the remarks of the spectators who wonder if you made your money honestly. In town a defective sparkplug brings the close attention of a crowd which exchanges opinions as to whether the lady in the tonneau is your wife. All agree that you must have mortgaged your home to buy the machine.
And yet it is evident that much misunderstanding could be avoided if we had a simple code of rules for people who cross the street just as there are regulations for the autoist. A few such rules suggest themselves: 1. If one is about to cross the street in front of an auto, one should do so either before the man in the car succumbs to heart failure or after, but not while the driver is wrestling with death; it is in such cases that one is apt to get hurt. 2. If one is in the middle of the road and sees a car approaching, one should move either (a) away from the car, (b) towards the car, (c) to the right, (d) to the left, or (e) stand still; under no circumstances should one attempt to combine (a), (b), (c), (d), and (e). 3. The safest place from which to ascertain the make of an automobile or to estimate its cost is the sidewalk.
XXX
THE SAMPLE LIFE
The hour, the occasion, and the scene were conducive to melancholy. We had walked a good fifteen miles into the open country and back again under chilly clouds, and were now paying for it with an empty sense of weariness and disenchantment. There is nothing so depressing as a bare room lit up by flaring gas-jets against the gloom of a late afternoon of rain; and the lights in Scipione's little cellar restaurant flared away in the most outrageous manner. Harding, across the table from me, wretchedly fluttered the pages of a popular magazine and looked ill-natured and horribly unkempt. The new table-cloths had not yet been laid for dinner. The sawdust on the floor was mostly mire. Angelina, the cook, was screaming at Paolo and Francesca, who were trying to boil the cat. It was very dreary.
"Harding," I said, "you were insisting only a little while ago that life is always beautiful."
"So it is," he replied, too listless to be defiant. "To some people."