“I am proposing to show cars for you. The fact is that your car looks a little bit complicated at first. If an intending purchaser found that a young girl understood it and drove it easily he would be reassured.” “Yes,” said Mr. James reflectively. “I’d thought of that. There’s something in it, perhaps.” He seemed to be debating the matter with himself in silence for a few moments, then he said, “Look here. I’ve got a man coming up to-morrow. He may buy a Pegasus, or he may buy some other car. Anyhow, he’s going to buy a car, and we should prefer that he bought a Pegasus. He’s a nervous kind of man, and my first idea was that in order to make him feel quite secure I would drive him myself. Now I’ll change my mind. He’d be more impressed if I sent the car out with a girl. If you sell the car to him we will pay you a small commission. Remember, he’s a nervous man. You don’t want to show him how fast the car can go. Show him how handy it is in a block or very slow traffic; the ease with which it is steered; the quietness of the engines; the impossibility of a skid.” “Yes, yes,” I said. “I see all that. I shall sell him that car.” I was round next morning at eleven. The possible purchaser was an elderly solicitor, retired from practice, who after long searchings of heart had decided that he would have a motor car. He looked dubiously at the big Pegasus waiting to take him his trial trip as if he expected that it might go off any moment. He was a good deal startled when he was told that I should drive him. “Is that all right?” I heard him ask Mr. James. “I am sending you out,” said Mr. James, “with one of the best drivers we’ve got.” I got up, switched on the spark, and the engines started. “Dear me,” said Mr. Hoskins, “I was always under the impression that it was necessary to wind it up--to turn a handle.” “So it would be,” I said, “if the car had been standing for a long time, or on a very cold day, but a good four-cylinder car will generally start with switching on the spark.” “You are a careful driver, I hope,” he said, as I took him through Piccadilly Circus. “Yes, I think so,” I said, “but then this car is particularly easy to manage.” His nervousness wore off as we got further away from London. He desired me ardently to show him the utmost the car could do. As it could do fifty miles an hour and we were in a police-trapped country at the time I refrained, but I showed him what it was to have plenty of power in going up steep hills. The car made nothing of them. He became silent as we drove back, and I did not bother him by chattering. Just as we were nearing home he said, “I like this car. It goes well, and there can be no great difficulty about it if a girl can drive it. I shall buy it.”