But there seems to be one phase of the motorist's trials which he
never bares to the public. He will confide to you just how bad the
gasoline was that he bought at the country garage; he will make it an
open secret that he had four blow-outs on the way home from the
country-club; but of one of his most poignant sorrows he never speaks.
I refer to the guests who snuggle in his tonneau.
Probably more irritations have arisen from the tonneau than from the
tires, day in and day out, and yet you never hear a man say, "Well, I
certainly had an unholy crew of camp-followers out with me
to-day--friends of my wife." Say what you will, there is an innate
delicacy in the average motorist, or such repression could not be.
Consider the types of tonneau guests. They are as generic and
fundamental as the spectrum and you will find them in Maine and New
Mexico at the same time.
There is the first, or major, classification, which may be designated
as the Financially Paralyzed. Persons in this class, on stepping into
your machine, automatically transfer all their money troubles to you.
You become, for the duration of the ride, whether it be to the next
corner or to Palm Beach, their financial guardian, and any little
purchases which are incidental to the trip (such as three meals a day)
belong to your list of running expenses. There seems to be something
about the motion of the automobile that inhibits their ability to
reach for their purses, and they become, if you want to be poetical
about it, like clay in the hands of the potter. Whither thou goest
they will go; thy check-book is their check-book. It is just like the
one great, big, jolly family--of which you are the father and backer.
Such people always make a great to-do about starting off on a trip.
You call for them and they appear at the window and wave, to signify
that they see you, and go through motions to show that just as soon as
Clara has put on her leggings they will be down. Soon they appear,
swathed in a tremendous quantity of motor wraps and veils (you can
usually tell the guests in a car by the number of head-veils they
wear) and get halfway down the walk, when Clara remembers her
rain-coat and has to swish back upstairs, veils and all. Out again,
and just as they get wedged into the tonneau, the elderly guest
wonders if there is time for some one to run in again and tell Helma
that if the Salvation Army man comes for the old magazines she is to
tell him to come again to-morrow. By the time this message is relayed
to Helma Garcia one solid half-hour has been dissipated from the cream
of the morning. This does not prevent the guests from remarking, as
the motor starts, that it certainly is a heavenly day and that it
couldn't have been better if it had been ordered. Knowing the type,
you can say to yourself that if the day _had_ been ordered you know
who would have had to give the order and pay the check.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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