d three or four punctured tubes.
Some day, I suppose, they'll pay him that seventy-five pounds sixteen
shillings and four-pence. But I hope it won't be yet.

The Honorary John, they tell me, is very angry with his papa. But I'll
back an old boy every time--notwithstanding what is written in the
papers.

IV

THE LADY WHO LOOKED ON

I wonder how many nowadays remember that pretty bit of goods, Maisa
Hubbard, who used to drive the racing cars in France, and was the
particular fancy of half the motormen who drive on the other side of
the blue water.

I first met her at the Gordon Bennett of 1901, and I must say I thought
her "sample goods." It's true that many would have it she was
over-well-known in America, and more than one young man got on the
rocks because of her; but the world rather likes a bit of scandal about
a pretty woman, and there's no shorter road to the masculine favour.

Anyway, Maisa Hubbard was popular enough down at Bordeaux, and you
might still have called her the belle of the ball on June 26 in the
year 1902, when we started from Champigny for the great race across the
Arlberg Mountains. That was the occasion, you will remember, when two
of our little company did something by way of a record in smashing up
their cars--but the story of one of these, Max, who drove for a French
company, has so often been told that I shall certainly not re-tell it
here. The other is a different story, and since it is the story of a
good man, a good car, and a pretty woman, there's no reason why Lal
Britten should not put his pen to it.

Well, I was driving for an English company at that time, the Vezey they
called themselves, though Wheezy would have been the better name. Such
a box of tricks I do believe was never put upon a chassis before or
since. It took two of us to start the engine in the morning, and the
same number to persuade her to leave off firing at night. The works
manager, Mr. Nathan, whose Christian name was Abraham, said that she'd
done eighty miles an hour with him easily; but the only time I got her
over fifty she broke her differential by way of an argument, and
nothing but a soft place in a hayfield saved me from the hospital. All
of which, of course, was good advertisement for the firm--and, truly,
if it came to making a noise in the world, why, you could hear their
car a good quarter of a mile away.

This was the flier I took over to France and tried to break in upon the
fine