s.

I need hardly tell you how glad I was to see him doing so well, and how
I laughed at all his foolish ideas about Maisa Hubbard. Win I felt he
would, though all the ladies of the Casino ballet came out to tell him
not to; and when old Dobbin, my own particular turn-out, condescended
to move again, I pushed on for Belfort, no longer deluding myself that
I was to be within a hundred miles of the winner, but hoping that I
should get to Vienna in time to shake "Ferdy" by the hand and to tell
him what a fool he had been.

If I didn't say this at Belfort, where Herr Jornek, the designer of the
car, stood in between us and took Ferdy away for the evening to talk to
him, it was well enough said at Brigenz. There a second halt was made;
and although we turned in at an early hour, I had plenty of time to put
the idea of winning into his head, and the idea of Maisa Hubbard out of
it. All the world knows that we had to go through France, Switzerland,
Germany, and Austria for that big race, and the Swiss part was slow
enough, since no racing was allowed by the timid old gentlemen at the
capital. Indeed, if there is one country in Europe a motorist does
well to keep out of at any time, it is Switzerland. We simply rolled
through the place on that particular journey, and at Brigenz my friend
Ferdinand was high up in the list, none but De Knyff, Jarrott, and the
Farmans being ahead of him. I told him that if he got over the Arlberg
Mountains as his car ought to get, he was winner for a certainty. And
that was the point we stuck to until it was time to turn into our
little beds and dream about to-morrow.

"I hear that the devil himself might be frightened to drive across that
pass at any speed," said I, "and there's your chance, Ferdy. You say
it will be the making of you to win this race. Well, you give your
mind to it, and don't shirk the risks, and you're as good as a winner
already. There isn't a car in the bunch can hold you on the mountains,
and you know it."

"You're right," said he, "and I wish I could say the same to you. But
Lal, my boy, it isn't exactly a war-horse that you've got under you,
and I can't say it is. I'm not frightened of the mountains, and can
break my neck as well as most; don't think otherwise. If my luck
holds, Lal Britten has fixed it up, and I shan't forget him when the
shekels are paid out. You may think me a bit dotty, but this I will
say, that I never felt so sure of myself or of th