A Knight on Wheels Part 25

"It would be interesting," he added drily, "to know whether you play bridge because you like it or because you think it a grand thing to do.

Come and dine with me on Sat.u.r.day night, and we will have a rubber."

"Sportsman, the old Head!" commented Philip, as they walked across the quadrangle.

"My word, yes!" said the other three.

CHAPTER XIV

THE IRON AGE

MR. MABLETHORPE was much interested when Philip told him the story in the holidays.

"The Head is all right," he said. "He was only a housemaster in my day, but there was no doubting his quality, even then. But this man Brett is a national disaster. Do you think you can derive any further profit from remaining his disciple?"

No, Philip thought not.

So Philip arrived at Coventry at last, having started some years previously, it may be remembered.

He was enrolled as a premium apprentice at the great works of the Britannia Motor Company. Here he learned to use his fingers and his fists, his muscles and his wits. He pa.s.sed through the drawing-office, and the erecting-shop, and the repairing-shop. The last interested him most of all, for the Britannia Company repaired other cars besides their own; so here Philip could indulge in the pleasures of variety. He learned to handle cars of every grade and breed. There was the lordly Britannia car itself--the final word in automobilism--with its long gleaming body and six-cylinder engine, so silent and free from vibration that it was possible to balance a half-crown edgewise upon the faintly humming radiator. There were countless other makes--racing-cars, runabout cars, commercial cars, even motor omnibuses. Philip learned to know the inner economy and peculiar ailments of all. There were American cars so cheap that you could not believe it possible that they could be sold at a profit to the maker--until it became necessary to put in repairs or adjustments. Then the whole car seemed to fall to pieces like a house of cards. Exasperated mechanics in the Britannia repairing-shop had a saying that if you wanted to take up the engine-bearings in one of these cars you had to begin by taking down the back axle. There was sufficient truth in this adage to set Philip wondering why such a nation of born engineers should make a point of placing their nuts and bolts in almost inaccessible positions.

"What is the reason of it all?" he enquired one day of a colleague from Pittsburg, who was a.s.sisting him to dismantle the greater part of the clutch and flywheel of a cheap American car as a preliminary to adjusting the magneto. "Why do you make cars like jig-saw puzzles?"

The colleague explained. He was a pleasant youth of twenty, with the studiously courteous manners of the American gentleman,--they contrasted quaintly with Philip's shy native _brusquerie_,--sent by a big-headed father to acquire a little British ballast before a.s.suming the position of second in command at home.

"I conclude it is because our national point of view is different from yours," he said. "These cars aren't _meant_ to be repaired. We make it as difficult as possible to do so. You in this country like to build a car that will last--like Westminster Abbey. Over there we say: 'What is the use of sinking good money in a design that will be out of date in two years anyway? Make it good if you can, but make it cheap, and when it wears out, make another. And whatever you do, don't fool around tinkering. Life's too short.' At least it is in our country," he added, smiling. "Over here you seem to make it go a bit further, like your automobiles. Unscrew that nut some more."

They were full and profitable years, those at the Britannia Works. As Philip gradually emanc.i.p.ated himself from the hard manual labour of the shops and rose from practical to theoretical problems, his old mathematical and scientific ability cropped out again. His inventive genius began to stir. Petrol was going steadily up in price, so Philip set himself to experiment with subst.i.tutes. The result was the Meldrum Paraffin Carburettor, now a standard adjunct of the commercial motor.

Later on came the Meldrum Fool-proof Automatic Lubricator, which achieved high favour with absent-minded amateurs who made a hobby of allowing their engines to seize. And later, in fulness of time, came the Meldrum Automatic Electro-magnetic Brake, which was destined to play a tremendous part in Philip's history, as you shall hear.

With all these burning interests to occupy him, Philip had little time for amus.e.m.e.nt. He played Rugby Football regularly for Coventry City; and any one who has had experience of that gentle pastime as cultivated in the Midland counties will realise the testimonial to Philip's muscle and general fitness involved in his selection. Every Sat.u.r.day he fared forth with his colleagues to do battle with the men of Moseley and Leicester, or even penetrated to London, there to indulge in feats of personal but friendly violence at the expense of Blackheath or the London Scottish.

He particularly enjoyed the occasional visits of the team to Oxford and Cambridge, for there he usually encountered some old friend--Lemaire, now a scholar of Balliol, or Desborough, coaching a crew upon the tortuous Cam.

But Rugby football was no fetish with Philip--which would have pleased Mr. Brett. All his heart was centred on his work. To Philip in those days Work was Life--a point of view which in due course Time would correct, or rather supplement. Each night when he said his prayers,--he had contracted the habit at the age of sixteen, after a certain Sunday evening sermon from the Head, backed by a particular hymn, which had awakened in his rapidly developing little soul the knowledge that there were more things in heaven and earth than were included in Uncle Joseph's scheme of education,--he asked his Maker, _tout court_, for work, and work, and more work, and health wherewith to perform it. Only that.

In addition to Collier, the American, he made other friends about the Works. Some were of humble station; others--like himself--premium apprentices who had paid to be taught their business, and hoped one day to direct businesses of their own, or at the worst lounge immaculately in a showroom in Bond Street or Pall Mall, intimidating wealthy but plebeian patrons into buying more expensive cars than had been their original intention. They were a rowdy, sociable, good-hearted crew, addicted to what they called "jags" on Sat.u.r.day nights. Then there were the salaried staff of the Works. One, Bilston, director of the drawing-office, conceived a strong liking for the capable Meldrum, and it was mainly through his representations that Philip, when he emerged from his apprentices.h.i.+p and began to pa.s.s examinations, was kept on at the Works and given a post which combined increased responsibility with further opportunities to perfect himself in his craft.

Occasionally Philip took a holiday. Sometimes he went to Cheltenham, where Uncle Joseph, roaring like any sucking dove, was devoting his reclaimed existence to Territorial a.s.sociations and Boy Scouts. To be quite frank, Philip was secretly conscious of a feeling of slight boredom at Cheltenham. A perfectly happy couple are undeniably just a little dull, and Uncle Joseph and the Beautiful Lady were so entirely wrapped up in one another and their daughter--an infant of quite phenomenal wisdom and beauty--that the ordinary pleasures of life were not for them. They held, rightly, that pleasure is the resource of those who have failed to find happiness, and consequently had no need of it; but their nephew, who had not yet arrived at the period when a man begins to ask himself whether he is happy or not, and possessed a frank and healthy appet.i.te for the usual diversions of a young man on holiday, found existence at Cheltenham a trifle too idyllic to be satisfying.

He enjoyed himself more at Red Gables. Mr. Mablethorpe remained as incorrigibly Peter Pannish as ever. Although his hair was whitening and his figure becoming more spherical, he declined to grow up. His levity was a perpetual sorrow to his sensitive spouse. Once, in response to a more than usually tearful appeal, he made a resolute effort to reform.

He read the "Times" at breakfast, supplements and all. He dressed himself in tight garments and accompanied his wife to tea-parties. He began to talk of engaging a chauffeur instead of indulging in personal bear-fights with Boanerges. In short, he became so unspeakably dull that Mrs. Mablethorpe grew more tearful than ever, and said it was breaking her spirit to have to keep on smiling and being cheerful for two.

Whereupon Mr. Mablethorpe, removing his tongue from his cheek, reverted to his former state, to the great comfort of Red Gables.

Of the Dumpling, Philip did not see much. She was usually at school; but when they met during the holidays she always appeared to her former playmate to have lost yet more of her adiposity and to have shot up another six inches. But they continued to be firm allies; and though in time the dumpling grew reserved and _gauche_, after the manner of adolescent maidens, their old joyous _camaraderie_ over such things as Boanerges and birds' nests was never suffered to die out.

One other haunt of his youth Philip visited--the house on Hampstead Heath.

He went twice. The first visit was paid during one of his school holidays, a trial trip on a new bicycle affording a pretext. (Philip was too much of a schoolboy by this time to admit even to himself that he proposed to ride forty miles just to see a girl.) It was midsummer. He arrived on the Heath about two in the afternoon, and, leaving his bicycle leaning against the trysting-gate of happy memory, cruised methodically about, stealthily watching the house in the hope that a certain slim figure would emerge from the side door and come skipping down the road.

But no such thing happened. The only member of the household whom he encountered was Montagu Falconer himself. He swung suddenly out of a side road, walking at his usual frantic pace, and, looking straight through Philip, whom he entirely failed to recognise, shot past him and was gone. But nothing further happened, and our knight, after lingering until dusk, pedalled home unrewarded by a glimpse of his Lady.

The second visit was paid two years later. This time Philip arrived at Hampstead by Tube, and walked boldly up to the Heath, big with resolution. He had decided to ring the bell like a real afternoon caller and enquire if Mrs. Falconer were at home.

As he drew near the house his footsteps faltered. Young women may wonder why, but the young man who still remembers the agony of his first formal call will not. But Philip walked on resolutely.

Finally he arrived at the house of his Lady. It was shuttered and silent. The garden was weedy and the lawn unshaven. Beside the gate a staring board said:--

TO LET

CHAPTER XV

OMEGA, CERTAINLY NOT!

MISS SYLVIA MABLETHORPE--"also known to the police," to quote her unfeeling papa, as Dumpling, Dumps, Daniel Lambert, and the Tichborne Claimant--sat upon the high wall which enclosed the demesne of Red Gables, gazing comfortably up and down the long white road. In her lap lay cherries, in her hand a novel. It was a hot summer afternoon. She had exchanged greetings with the local policeman, various school-children, and the curate, all of whom had pa.s.sed by upon their several errands within the last half-hour. For the moment the road was clear, and Dumps had leisure to resume the pursuit of literature.

But she had barely covered half a page when there fell upon her ears the sound of a horse's hoofs. Dumps, however, did not raise her eyes from the not very interesting volume before her, though it may be noted that she had looked up readily enough upon the advent of the curate, the policeman, and the school-children. All of which was a sign that Dumps was growing up. Indeed, she had left school a month ago, and was to go abroad in a few weeks to undergo that mysterious feminine process known as "finis.h.i.+ng."

The clatter of hoofs grew louder, slowed down, and came to a stealthy stop just opposite to that part of the wall whereon Dumps was seated.

She looked up lazily, to find a pleasantly sunburned youth of twenty-two removing his cap.

"h.e.l.lo, Derek!" she observed casually. "That you?"

Master Derek blushed guiltily.

"Yes," he said. "Good-afternoon. I only got back from Aldershot last night."

"Oh. Have you been away?" enquired the heartless Dumps.

"Four months," replied Derek, in tones of respectful reproach.

"And now you are home for the holidays?" remarked Miss Mablethorpe brightly.

"Long leave," Derek corrected her, in a humble voice.

"What fun it must be," continued Sylvia, "living in a tent for weeks and doing nothing."

Second Lieutenant Rayner, who had just spent four strenuous months under canvas or on manoeuvres, ending with a route march in which his battalion had covered a hundred and twenty miles in four days, smiled wanly. No man is a hero to the girl with whom he has played in infancy.

"Topping weather, isn't it?" he observed presently.