The engine still failed to exhibit any signs of life.
At this point my wife, who had been patiently sitting in the hall wearing a new motor-bonnet for the best part of two hours, came out and suggested that we should proclaim a temporary truce and have lunch.
At 2.30 we returned to the scene of operations. Having once more tickled the now thoroughly depressed carburetter to the requisite pitch of hilarity, Andy was on the point of resuming operations with the starting-handle, when I drew his attention to a small stud-like affair sliding across a groove in the dash-board.
“I think,” I remarked, “that that is the only thing on the car which you haven’t fiddled with as yet. Supposing I push it across?”
Andy, I was pleased to observe, betrayed distinct signs of confusion. Recovering quickly, he protested that the condemned thing was of no particular use, but I could push it across if I liked.
I did so. Next moment, after three deafening but encouraging backfires, Bill Bailey’s engine came to life with a roar, and the car proceeded rapidly backwards down the road, Andy, threaded through the spare wheel like a camel in a needle’s eye, slapping down pedals with one hand and clutching at the steering-gear with the other.
“Who left the reverse in?” he panted, when the car had at length been brought to a standstill and the engine stopped.
No explanation was forthcoming, but I observed the scared and flushed countenance of my daughter peering apprehensively round the coach-house door, and drew my own conclusions.
Since Bill Bailey was obviously prepared to atone for past inertia by frenzied activity, our trial trip now came within the sphere of possibility. My wife had by this time removed her bonnet, and flatly declined to accompany us, alleging somewhat unkindly that she was expecting friends to tennis at the end of the week. The Gruffin, however, would not be parted from us, and presently Bill Bailey, with an enthusiastic but incompetent chauffeur at the wheel, an apprehensive proprietor holding on beside him, and a touzled long-legged hoyden of twelve clinging grimly to the spider-seat behind, clanked majestically out of the garden gate and breasted the slope leading to the main road.
Victory at last! This was life! This was joy! I leaned back and took a full breath. The Gruffin, protruding her unkempt head between mine and Andy’s, shrieked out a hope that we might encounter a load of hay en route. It was so lucky, she said. She was not disappointed.