The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lightning Conductor, by
C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

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Title: The Lightning Conductor
The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car

Author: C. N. Williamson
A. M. Williamson

Release Date: October 7, 2010 [EBook #33845]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE
LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR

_THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A MOTOR-CAR_

EDITED BY
C. N. AND A. M. WILLIAMSON

REVISED AND ENLARGED

_FIFTEENTH IMPRESSION_

[Illustration]

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
1903

Copyright, 1903,
BY
HENRY HOLT & CO.

ROBERT DRUMMOND, PRINTER, NEW YORK.

TO THE REAL MONTIE

THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

In the Oak Room, the "White Lion,"
Cobham, Surrey, _November 12_.

Dear Shiny-headed Angel,

I hope you won't mind, but I've changed all my plans. I've bought an
automobile, or a motor-car, as they call it over here; and while I'm
writing to you, Aunt Mary is having nervous prostration on a sofa in a
corner at least a hundred years old--I mean the sofa, not the corner,
which is a good deal more. But perhaps I'd better explain.

Well, to begin with, some people we met on the steamer (they were an
archdeacon, with charming silk legs, and an archdeaconess who snubbed us
till it leaked out through that Aunt Mary that you were _the_ Chauncey
Randolph) said if we wanted to see a thoroughly characteristic English
village, we ought to run out to Cobham; and we ran--to-day.

Aunt Mary had one of her presentiments against the expedition, so I was
sure it would turn out nice. When we drove up to this lovely old
red-brick hotel, in a thing they call a fly because it crawls; there
were several automobiles starting off, and I can tell you I felt
small--just as if I were Miss Noah getting out the ark. (Were there any
Miss Noahs, by the way?)

One of t