when we're outside, you will have got far enough in your motoring
lesson, I think, to try driving."

What the last hour had not taught me (thanks to him) in theory of
coils and accumulators, electromagnets and other things, was scarcely
worth learning. I seemed to have looked through glass walls into the
cylinders, at the fussy little pistons working under control of the
"governor,"--a tyrant, I felt sure. I had already formed a mature
opinion on the question of mechanically operated inlet valves (which
sounded disagreeably surgical), and was able to judge what their
advantage ought to be over those of the old type worked by the suction
of the piston. I could imagine that more than half the fun of owning a
motor car would lie in understanding the thing inside and out; and I
said so.

"It's a little like controlling the elements," Jack answered. "Think
of the difference in this machine, when it's asleep--cold and quiet,
an engine mounted on a frame, a tank of water, a reservoir of cheap
spirit, a pump, a radiator, a magnet, some geared wheels fitting
together, a lever or two. My man twists a handle. On the instant the
machine leaps into frenzied life. The carburetter sprays its vapour
into the explosion chamber, the magnet flashes its sparks to ignite
it, the cooling water bathes the hot walls of the cylinders--a thing
of nerves, and ganglions, and tireless muscles is panting eagerly at
your service. You move this lever, you press your foot lightly on this
pedal; the engine transfers its power to the wheels; you move. The
carriage with you and your friends is borne at railway speed across
continents. You can hurl yourself at sixty miles an hour along the
great highroads, you can crawl like a worm through the traffic of
cities."