Out and Home.
Page 15
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
At Whiter Sports.
An Overseas Sweepstake. My Lighting Troubles.
By "The Extractor.'
A letter, written on Boxing Day, has reached me from the Forest Hotel at Vermala-sur-Sierre, Switzerland, from Mr. Claude Browne of the Lacre concern, and I gather that Sir Ernest Shackleton is not with him. As we go to press. I observe that a fresh expedition to the Antarctic is announced, with Sir Ernest at the head, so evidently that valorous explorer is engaged in something more engrossing than winter sports, Vermala, I see, is at an altitude of more than 5000 ft., and is in the neighbourhood of -Montana, I hope Mr. Claude .Browne is deriving much pleasure and benefit from his visit.
By this time, within a few days of the close of the year, the last editorial and advertising pages of the Overseas Annual have passed into the printers' hands., and the thoughts of the staff are already directed towards the Manchester Show—more of that anon, however. Meanwhile, a brain wave occurred last. week to some member that an office sweepstake would be a seasonable diversion, and I was invited, firstly to contribute, the agreed-upon sum, and secondly to guess the number of words contained in the editorial matter of the I-014 Overseas. A very rapid computation only was allowed, and I fixed it at 75,000. Calculations by others varied so
much as from 52,000 to 120,000. However, some worldly wiseacre has said that he would rather be a trustee of an estate than a legatee ; there is more scope for skill. The measuring up of the words showed the number at 72,900, and, as I was nearest, a request. was sent on to me that I was to prepare a suitable form of thanks for the occasion of the presentation. Meanwhile, the trustees in the editorial office had another inspiration. Three of their individual estimates ranged round 70,000 to 70,200. The situation must be saved at all costs ; a new form of reckoning was quickly instituted, and the proud announcement was made that the number of words came out at 69,290. It was Mark Twain who said that he never knew who was going to win at cards unless he dealt them himself.
One is careful still to keep candles in a residence electrically lighted, and henceforward, after having a year with an electric-lighting set, I shall keep in the boot of my small car a paraffin side lamp and one for the tail in case of contingencies. We are all anxious to believe that electric lighting is now entirely dependable, but it resembles the famous Duke of York, inasmuch. as when it is up, it is up, but when it's down, it's down.
My holiday motoring was in the main delightful, but dinners, like last trains, are not to be trifled with, and when, in spite of all precautions, your light nearly fails you, bringing you home at the crawl for the last 20 miles, and when your current disappears altogether and you have to rely on a borrowed carriage candle lamp while traversing twisting country lanes, then your patience fizzles out. And all this in spite of taking up slackness in the driving belt and all the rest of it.
I was staying near Henley and some days I did 50 miles daylight driving and an hour with the lights. Next day probably 10 miles daylight and two hours with the lights on. You cannot regulate your driving to the vagaries of a lighting system, but the dim candle-light experience landed me in a ditch which I occupied for half an hour, until the floorboard of the car proved a solution and I was able to reverse up a mound with the aid of the board.
One friend tells me he never travels without rope to tie round his wheels to get a better grip of ditches. Another suggests a jockey pulley for the dynamo belt because it is often not slack enough to take out even half a link and still it is most of the time refraining from work. Anyhow and as how it be, the lighting which, when all goes well is incomparable, will have in the boot as a, reserve, ready charged, the humbler paraffin helpmates.