BRINGING IT HOME.
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The Tale of a Derelict Lorry and Its Resurrection.
By Fred Gillett T WAS at a loose end that day. Walking along the istreet, I was conscious of an approaching vehicle, which seemed to be trying in vain to find the softest spots on the granite setts in order to deaden its tendency to imitate the noise made by a jazz band out of tune and trying to make its squeaks sound like bubbles'. It was an aged motor lorry of• transatlantic make. It had been a good bus in its time—whenever that was—p but, like a post-betting-tax bookmaker, was now handicapped in the struggle to hold its own with its "betters."
It was evident to the naked ear that several of its nuts and bolts were, like me, at a loose end; also that, unlike me, its connections were doubtful.
Its driver was my friend Jason. Few other drivers could have got a revolution out of that engine. He apologized for the shakiness of the outfit, explaining that it was the garage hack—a sort of also-runabout, used only in emergencies. A S.O.S. message bad arrived from another lorry, ditched somewhere in the country, and Jason was on his way to render first aid to the derelict and to get it home. He had some towing tackle on board, for use if necessary, although it was doubtful whether his bus was capable of towing a perambulator.
The Very Willing Passenger.
As I had been associated with him on several previous occasions as acting loader (see log book if you doubt my word), he now invited me to climb in and accompany him to the scene of the wreck. I at once responded that I would accompany him to the ends of the earth—a somewhat remote prospect behind that engine.
It was suffering from consumption—not the galloping sort—and our progress was slow. Nevertheless, it was doing its best and frequently " put a jerk into it." Jason optimistically explained that its excess of consumption was in inverse ratio to the geometrical progression of its lack of compression. I can quite believe it. I don't pretend to understand these mechanical terms, but, wishing to show an intelligent technical interest in the beastly thing, I remarked that the floorboards were very loose and that possibly a good deal of compression was escaping through them.
He said that explanation would never have occurred to him, but that with some of these old buses you never knew what they would not do until they did it.
That reminded me of a slogan : "Here's to it ! When you get to it, do it ! If you don't do it when you get to it, may you never get to it to do it " (To be repeated rapidly from -memory three times a day ; try it!)
An Insidious Suggestion.
That reminded him of another slogan: "Stop me and 1)0 one!" During the season—that is, nearly always —in some of our large northern cities men go about on box-tricycles selling bricks of ice-cream. (It is also done down south, where there is more excuse for it!) The front of the tricycle bears the legend in large letters, "Stop me and buy one ! " During Civic Week in Manchester there were procession, and the turn-out in one of these consisted of a steam wagon with three trailers in tow, carrying a steel girder 70 ft. long, on the side of which was playfully painted the same slogan, "Stop me and buy one!"
I told Jason—we were passing a village inn...at the time—that I thought "Stop and buy me one!" would be an even better slogan, but he did not act on the hint. Besides, it was "out of hours."
But these are digressions, and I am wandering from the objective of this narrative. However, we took so long in getting there that we had to fill up the time somehow by saying at intervals to one another: "Here's n42
another ; here's another." Our objective was to find a derelict lorry and bring it home, if possible. After wandering about the country in search of our quarry— or lorry—we reckoned that we were now hot on its track. Certainly we were, as they say in that parlour game where somebody hides a needle in the sofa cushions, "getting warmer." The engine, entering into the spirit of the game, was absolutely boiling.
We inquired of a melancholy looking country policeman whether he had seen a lorry hung up anywhere in the vicinity. He first turned his gaze towards the sky, as though there might be a " hung-up " vehicle in an overhanging tree. Then he looked down at his feet, as though to make-sure that there was no grass growing under them. He then took out his notebook and, with the assistance of a moistened thumb, proceeded to look through it for something that might give a clue to the lost lorry's whereabouts. No doubt he found some thumb-prints therein. Having conveyed the impression that he had had a busy day taking notes of lost lorries, stolen white elephants, stray brontosauri and missing lady novelists, he shut the book and said that if we took the first on the left down Sleepy Hollow and then turned to the right down Rutty Lane we should come to the "Rake and Pitchfork" and probably find what we wanted there.
The Expiring Big-end.
He walked on ahead to show us the way, and we should probably have overtaken him in the next halfmile, but our engine suddenly began to make a funny new noise and Jason remarked laconically, " Big-end gone." We had apparently reached one of the little ends of the earth where nothing is done in a hurry and where big-ends go when they need a change. .
,We found. the invalided lorry in the yard of the " Rake and Pitchfork." It was now half-past five in the afternoon and the landlord had just opened his door to the public. So I saw a prospect of filling up the interval profitably—to the landlord—while Jason attended to the internal troubles of the sick lorry.
After jacking up its hind-quarters, turning its back wheels round and telling it to say "Ninety-nine," so to speak, he announced that the trouble was in the drive and that if he only had a pin he could soon put it right. As it seemed a simple matter of a pin, I offered to get him an assorted packet of these useful articles or borrow a needle and cotton, but he paid no attention to my fatuous suggestion. After looking round some outbuildings he found an old iron bolt on a tumbledown stable door, and said that with a hammer and a few brains he could make a pin of it, and he did. The landlord gave him permission to use the bolt, stating that he had no further use for it himself.
"It's no use bolting the stable door after the 'horse has been superseded by the commercial motor," quoth mine host.
He did not quoth that really, bui you understand I have to put a few smart and clever-sounding epigrams into this article in order to " give an air of verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative."
That Everlasting Safety Thirst.
What he really said was : "Is there anything else you lads require?" To which I quoth in reply. that I had a safety thirst.
. • While Jason was hammering the bolt into the shape of a pin, and while I was busy doing a little frothblowing, I asked the landlord why the village constable wore such a morose, melancholy, never-smiledagain expression.
"Ah I " said mine host. "He's been like that ever since his great disappointment—poor fellow! About a month ago I had a little temporary financial erabarraesment—nothing much and I've got over it. In short, I was short of cash. However, the local slop—Charlie his name is—was new to the place. He was as keen as a coalman who had just joined a mustard club on detecting local crime—a commodity that is very scarce in this neighbourhood.
"One dark, wet midnight Charlie was prowling around, itching to catch some enterprising burglar a-burgling or, failing that, some poor benighted motorist like a Manx cat without a tail light, when he heard the clink of glasses in my kitchen. Putting his eagle eye to a chink in the shutters, he espied a suspiciouslooking character sitting at ray table quaffing ale. There was a pack of cards on the table and Charlie could hear the words 'Fifteen two, fifteen four, and two's a pair, and one for his knob. It's my crib!'
"lie at once knocked at the door and demanded why I allowed gambling and the consumption of intoxicating liquors on my premises after hours and why I did not turn out my guests at closing time. Well,' says 'I've been trying to turn him out every night for a week, but he won't go? Won't go?' says P.C. Charlie.
We'll soon see about that,' and taking the unwelet ,ne visitor by the scruff of the neck he sped the parting guest and marched him off, in spite of his protests. Then I locked the door and went to bed.
"In a few minutes the constable returned with the unwelcome stranger and knocked loudly on the door again. I looks out of my bedroom window and asks what the trouble is and why he was knocking folks up at that time o' night. You must open the door at once and let this man in again,' says the constable. 'I have discovered that he• was the man in possession!' 'Can't help that,' says I. 'You turned him out. It's after hours, so he must stay out. 0! Charlie, take him away! Good-night !
That was the landlord's story—to lie taken with a grain of malt, or salt, according to taste. It served to fill up the interval, and by that time Jason had pinned up the kinks in the lorry's anatomy and it was fit to get itself home under its own power.
"Then we sha'n't need the towing tackle, after all," I said.
"Yes we shall. They've got to tow us home now."