Modern Chronicle, a — Volume 04 by Winston Churchill
page 55 of 89 (61%)
page 55 of 89 (61%)
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announce by another series of explosions a second disaster at the other
end of the street. A crowd collected there, too. "Oh, dear!" said Honora, "don't you think we ought to take the train, Mr. Brent? If I were to miss a dinner at my own house, it would be too terrible!" "There's nothing to worry about," he assured her. "Nothing broken. It's only the igniting system that needs adjustment." Although this was so much Greek to Honora, she was reassured. Trixton Brent inspired confidence. There was another argument with the chauffeur, a little more animated than the first; more greasy plugs taken out and wiped, and a sharper exchange of compliments with the crowd; more grinding, until the chauffeur's face was steeped in perspiration, and more pistol shots. They were off again, but lamely, spurting a little at times, and again slowing down to the pace of an ox-cart. Their progress became a series of illustrations of the fable of the hare and the tortoise. They passed horses, and the horses shied into the ditch: then the same horses passed them, usually at the periods chosen by the demon under the hood to fire its pistol shots, and into the ditch went the horses once more, their owners expressing their thoughts in language at once vivid and unrestrained. It is one of the blessed compensations of life that in times of prosperity we do not remember our miseries. In these enlightened days, when everybody owns an automobile and calmly travels from Chicago to Boston if he chooses, we have forgotten the dark ages when these machines were possessed by devils: when it took sometimes as much as three hours to go twenty miles, and often longer than that. How many of us have had |
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