"
"Here!" said Hinchcliffe, still on his back, to the engineer. "Come here
and show me the lead of this pipe." And the engineer lay down beside him.
"That's all right," said Mr. Hinchcliffe, rising. "But she's more of a bag
of tricks than I thought. Unship this superstructure aft"--he pointed to
the back seat--"and I'll have a look at the forced draught."
The engineer obeyed with alacrity. I heard him volunteer the fact that he
had a brother an artificer in the Navy.
"They couple very well, those two," said Pyecroft critically, while
Hinchcliffe sniffed round the asbestos-lagged boiler and turned on gay
jets of steam.
"Now take me up the road," he said. My man, for form's sake, looked at me.
"Yes, take him," I said. "He's all right."
"No, I'm not," said Hinchcliffe of a sudden--"not if I'm expected to judge
my water out of a little shaving-glass."
The water-gauge of that steam-car was reflected on a mirror to the right
of the dashboard. I also had found it inconvenient.
"Throw up your arm and look at the gauge under your armpit. Only mind how
you steer while you're doing it, or you'll get ditched!" I cried, as the
car ran down the road.
"I wonder!" said Pyecroft, musing. "But, after all, it's your steamin'
gadgets he's usin' for his libretto, as you might put it. He said to me
after breakfast only this mornin' 'ow he thanked his Maker, on all fours,
that he wouldn't see nor smell nor thumb a runnin' bulgine till the
nineteenth prox.
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