for Alfred's motto was `Nil admirari' -- but without hesitation,
an offer to drive in the greatest race in the world.
He could drive really well, too; as for belief in himself,
after six months' apprenticeship in a garage he was prepared
to vivisect a six-cylinder engine with the confidence of
a diplomaed bachelor of engineering.

Barring a tendency to flash driving, and a delight in persecuting slow cars
by driving just in front of them and letting them come up
and enjoy his dust, and then shooting away again,
he was a respectable member of society. When his boss was in the car
he cloaked the natural ferocity of his instincts; but this day,
with only myself on board, and a clear run of a hundred and twenty miles
up to the station before him, he let her loose, confident that
if any trouble occurred I would be held morally responsible.

As we flew past a somnolent bush pub, Alfred, whistling softly,
leant forward and turned on a little more oil.

"You never heard about Henery and the elephant?" he said.
"It was dead funny. Henery was a bushwacker, but clean mad on motorin'.
He was wood and water joey at some squatter's place until he seen
a motor-car go past one day, the first that ever they had in the districk.

"`That's my game,' says Henery; `no more wood and water joey for me.'

"So he comes to town and gets a job off Miles that had that garage
at the back of Allison's. An old cove that they called John Bull
-- I don't know his right name, he was a fat old cove --
he used to come there to hire cars, and Henery used to drive him.