Out !--and Home in a Week' s Time.
Page 12
Page 13
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
By "TAte Inspector."
On Friday last, the phantom form of " The Extractor" glided into the Editorial Offices of this journal with a more than usually determined look upon his face. I, at first thought, feared that, editorially, we had been deemed to err ; that, as is our custom if we see fit, we had written something which " may be all very well, old chap, you know—but it makes it difficult for the business department." My fears on that score were groundless, and I soon gathered that it was not even the weekly plaint that " my copy will be down not less than five minutes before you go to press," but a brand new on
-" my copy won't be down at all "— v.-hich was to be tendered. After re. covering from the effects of this staggering announcement, I realised that there was imminent danger that the next number of our technico-business journal might, perchance, have to go to press without its usual weekly leaven of reminiscent brevities, as it emanates from that much-travelled member of the staff—" The Extractor." He had not definitely gone on strike. Oh no :
He merely purposed judiciously to bury himself somewhere in the wilds of Devon or Cornwall—somewhere where they don't make tires, or offer halfpages. For a fortnight, or thereabouts, " the Extractor " was going to make holiday. I was tempted to wonder whether a fortnight's change would not have done him more good.
Fearing lest, in the course of a fortnight, the numerous supporters of
" COMMERCIAL MOTOR " might have learned to forget the columns of comment which have, with praiseworthy regularity, appeared in these pages every week under the title of " Out and flome," I, in a sympatMic moment, volunteered to act as locum tenens for a few days. My offer was not received wilt that whole-hearted cheerfulness which I felt that I had a right to anticipate, but, after sotne demur, it was mutually agreed that I should temporarily assume the grave responsibility. In a voice which trembled with emotion, " The Extractor," with a Bradshaw in his hand, exhorted me in no way to lower the tone of " Out and Home"; in short, so far as in me lie, to retain that wonderful style and diction for which he had become so famed, and of which he was so proud. Though doubting my ability, I gave my word to use my best endeavours, and, in the few paragraphs which follow, I must claim the indulgence of The Editor and his readers, and ask them, in the attempt to forget their temporary loss, to imagine that " The Extractor" is still with them. This should not be difficult.
Writing of the Moor Club reminds me that excelltan excursions are now being run between Folkestone and Hythe. Mr. J. NV. Cane's patent motor coaches are, I hear, so busy carrying the Folkestone people to Hythe, and the Hy the people to Folkestone, that most of the residences in the two towns arc now shut, as the population and the visitors now spend the whole of their time en route in Cann's coaches.
renewed an old friendship last week, in Leeds, while I was on my travels in the North; Mr. Hadenuf Gokwick called for tne, at the hotel, on a two horse-power Phoden motor bicycle, and we spent some convivial hours, driving round the country, interspersing our remarks with yarns about the times he and I used to have when we were both apprentices in the shops of George Stephenson—or was it George Washington?
I happened on Mr. A. Taxey Meether, of the Putney Iron Works, in town, the other day, and my only chance to have some talk with him was for me to spend the rest of the day in various tubes where he is very busy with a large contract for the supply of keys for the self-winding clocks. I eventually emerged from mother earth, somewhere in the neighbourhood of Golder's Green, after having spent a very pleasant twenty-four hours—in Taxey Meether's genial company— below ground, and with a little more than the usual six feet at my disposal.
In about three years' time, I shall offer a small prize, consisting of a framed original poster of " THE COMMERCIAL MOTOR," executed in beautiful tints of orange and black on a white ground. This will be prepared by one of our special compositors, and will be presented to the reader who guesses the correct number of nails in the leftfoot boot of the 4,973rd person to pass the turnstiles at the Royal Show whereever it may be held in that year. A curious feature about this wonderful competition is the extraordinary number of people who, I anticipate, wilt enter for it. Of course, there will be a few who will not.
I had the good fortune to run across Mr. J. A. Jackson, of THE COMMERC/AL MOTOR," the other day, in a Turkish Bath near Dalston Junction. He was disguised as a Raisulian bandit, and was cooling off, while I was busy, with a pyrometer, getting ready for the heat treatment. As he happened to be the subject of our " Trade Tail-Light " sketch this week, I took the opportunity to have some talk with him. In spite of the fact that he slept calmly through the interview, I elicited some few interesting details of his career, although he is not
of a communicative nature. Mr. Jackson was probably born in England, in spite of his strong French accent, ;.nd he received several pieces of his wonderfully-complete education at the Universities—Oxford and Cambridge, I understand ; after that, he went to Eton and Harrow for a few weeks, and eventually went to polish off at the Polytechnic, where he acquired quite a reputation for analytical chemistry— extracting things and so on. After several years on the stage, at the bar, and in the consulting room, at the ripe age of 77, he settled down to, serious
business. My roost persuasive tones could not elicit what he did next.
• In private life, Jackson is a genial, good-tempered, natural, frank, cheery, helpful, earnest, sound, light, heat, progressive, open-hearted, businesslike, genial, good-tempered, natural, frank, cheery, and likeable fellow. I have never seen his private life, but he is quite the sort of man who would ask me out to supper on the. evening of the loth of August if he knew I had nothing to do that evening. I am the last man in the world to give a hint, but I hope this column may meet his eye.