in
one place and part in another, the body here and the engine there, and
the radiator another place. There's lots of cheap cars made like that.

"So Henery he says that this is a twenty mongrel--only a four-cylinder
engine; and nobody drops to what she is till Henery goes out one Sunday
and waits for the big Napier that Scotty used to drive--it belonged to
the same bloke wot owned that big racehorse wot won all the races. So
Henery and Scotty they have a fair go round the park while both their
bosses is at church, and Henery beat him out o' sight--fair lost
him--and so Henery was reckoned the boss of the road. No one would take
him on after that."

A nasty creek-crossing here required Alfred's attention. A little girl,
carrying a billy-can of water, stood by the stepping stones, and smiled
shyly as we passed. Alfred waved her a salute quite as though he were an
ordinary human being. I felt comforted. He had his moments of relaxation
evidently, and his affections like other people.

"What happened to Henry and the ninety-horse machine?" I asked. "And
where does the elephant come in?"

Alfred smiled pityingly.

"Ain't I tellin' yer," he said. "You wouldn't understand if I didn't
tell yer how he got the car and all that. So here's Henery," he went on,
"with old John Bull goin' about in the fastest car in Australia, and
old John, he's a quiet old geezer, that wouldn't drive faster than the
regulations for anything, and that short-sighted he can't see to
the side of the road. So what does Henery do? He fixes up the
speed-indicator--puts a new face on it, so that when the car is doing
thirty, the indicator only shows fifteen, and twenty for forty, and so
on. So out they'd go, and if Henery knew there was a big car in front of
him, he'd let out to forty-five, and the pace would very near blow
the whiskers off old John; and every now and again he'd look at the
indicator, and it'd be showin' twenty-two and a half, and he'd say:

"'Better be careful, Henery, you're slightly exceedin' the speed limit;
twenty miles an hour, you know, Henery, should be fast enough for
anybody, and you're doing over twenty-two.'

"Well, one day, Henery told me, he was tryin' to catch up a big car that
just came out from France, and it had a half-hour start of him, and he
was just fairly flyin', and there was a lot of cars on the road, and he
flies past 'em so fast the old man says, 'It's very strange, Henery,'
he says, 'that all the cars th