the Automobile Club of Great Britain
and Ireland, the present-day historian of the automobile will find
the subject well within his grasp.

There are those who doubt the utility of the automobile, as there
have been scoffers at most new things under the sun; and there have
been critics who have derided it for its "seven deadly sins," as
there have been others who have praised its "Christian graces." The
parodist who wrote the following newspaper quatrain was no enemy of
the automobile in spite of his cynicism.

"A look of anguish underneath the car,
Another start; a squeak, a grunt, a jar!
The Aspiration pipe is working loose!
The vapour can't get out! And there you are!"

"Strange is it not, that of the myriads who
Have Empty Tanks and know not what to do,
Not one will tell of it when he Returns.
As for Ourselves, why, we deny it, too."

The one perfectly happy man in an automobile is he who drives,
steers, or "runs the thing," even though he be merely the hired
chauffeur. For proof of this one has only to note how readily
others volunteer to "spell him a bit," as the saying goes.
Change of scene and the exhilaration of a swift rush through space
are all very well for friends in the _tonneau_, but for real
"pleasure" one must be the driver. Not even the manifold
responsibilities of the post will mar one's enjoyment, and there is
always a supreme satisfaction in keeping one's engine running
smoothly.

"Nothing to watch but the road," is the general motto for the
automobile manufacturer, but the enthusiastic automobilist goes
farther, and, for his motto, takes "stick to your post," and, in case
of danger, as one has put it, "pull everything you see, and put your
foot on everything else."

The vocabulary of the automobile has produced an entirely new
"jargon," which is Greek to the multitude, but, oh, so expressive and
full of meaning to the initiated.

An automobile is masculine, or feminine, as one likes to think of it,
for it has many of the vagaries of both sexes. The French Academy has
finally come to the fore and declared the word to be masculine, and
so, taking our clue once more from the French (as we have in most
things in the automobile world), we must call it _him_, and speak of
it as _he_, instead of _her_, or _she_.

That other much overworked word in automobilism, _chauffeur_, should
be placed once for all. The driver of an automobile is not really a
_chauffeur_, neither is he w