polishing rag for some other mystic rite.

This servant of the car answered to the name of Gotteland, and having
learned from Jack that he had started life as a jockey in Hungary, I
thought evil of him for abandoning the horse for the machine. He
evidently belonged to that mysterious race of beings called suddenly
into existence by a vast new industry; mysterious, because how or why
a man drifts or jumps into the occupation of chauffeur is never
explained to those who see only the finished article. Jack praised him
as a model of chauffeury accomplishments, among which were a knowledge
of seventeen languages more or less, to say nothing of dialects, and a
temper warranted to stand a burst tyre, a disordered silencer, an
uncertain ignition, and (incidentally) a broken heart--all occurring
at the same time. Despite these alleged perfections, I distrusted the
cosmopolitan apostate on principle, and was about to turn upon his
leather-clad form a disapproving gaze, when I dimly realised that it
would be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Instead, I smiled
hypocritically as we "took a look" at the car before lending it our
lives.

"I hope the brute isn't vicious; doesn't blow up or explode, or shed
its safety valve, or anything," I remarked with a facetiousness which
in the circumstances did me credit.

Gotteland answered with the pitying air of the professional for the
amateur. "The _one_ thing an automobile can't do, sir, is to blow up."

I was glad to hear this, in spite of the strong coffee lately
swallowed, but on the other hand there were doubtless a great many
other equally disagreeable things which it could do. Of course, if it