boat, and then another class of boats, the
destroyers (destined to catch torpedo-boats), and finally the
submarine. With the automobile the evolution was much the same; first
it was a sort of horseless carriage, for town use, then something a
little more powerful that would climb hills, so that one might
journey afield, and then the "touring-car," and then the racing
machine, and now we have automobile omnibuses, and even automobile
ambulances to pick up any frightened persons possessed of less
agility than a kangaroo or a jack-rabbit might inadvertently have
been bowled over. These disasters are seldom the automobilist's
fault, and, happily, they are becoming fewer and fewer; but the
indecision that overcame the passer-by, in the early days of the
bicycle, still exists with many whenever an automobile comes in
sight, and they back, and fill, and worry the automobilist into such
a bad case of nerves that, in spite of himself, something of the
nature of an accident, for which he is in no way responsible, really
does happen.

Once the writer made eleven hundred kilometres straight across
France, from the Manche to the Mediterranean, and not so much as a
puncture occurred. On another occasion a little journey of half the
length resulted in the general smashing up, four times in succession,
of a little bolt (no great disaster in itself), within the interior
arrangements of the motor, which necessitated a half a day's work on
each occasion in taking down the cylinder and setting it up again,
and each time in a small town far away from any properly equipped
machine-shop, and with the assistance only of the local locksmith.
It's astonishing how good a job a locksmith in France can do, even on
an automobile, the mechanism of which he perhaps has never seen
before. Officially the locksmith in France is known as a _serrurier_,
but in the slang of the land he is the _cambrioleur du pays_, a name
which is expressive, but which means nothing wicked. He can put a
thread on a bolt or make a new nut to replace one that has
mysteriously unscrewed itself, which is more than many a mere bicycle
repairer can do.

The automobilist touring France should make friends with the nearest
_cambrioleur_ if he is in trouble. In England this is risky, a
"gas-pipe thread" being the average lay workman's idea of "fixing you
up."

Away back in Chaucer's day folk were "longen to gon on pilgrimages,"
and it does not matter in the least what the ways