the captain on the crank, we could only get explosions at
intervals. There was good compression; everything was
lubricating nicely; no heating or sticking anywhere--but the
engine had lain down on us. The captain was so angry he wouldn't
speak a word to me, and mumbled red-hot things to himself under
his breath. Guess how I felt. But he was too much of a
gentleman not to crank--and so he cranked and cranked and still
nothing happened. I chased a whole row of things one after
another--battery, buzzer, oil or gasoline in the cylinders,
defective insulation, commutator, water in the carburettor,
choked feed-pipe,--and all it did was to cough in a dreary,
tow-me-home-to-mother sort of way,

"If the captain had known anything about engines and could have
made it start, I expect I would have married him and lived happy
ever afterward. It was just his Heaven-sent chance to win out
and show he was the right man for the place. But he didn't know
enough to run a phonograph and began to talk about getting towed
home, and how if he ever bought a machine it would be electric.
If I had been out of patience with him before, imagine what I
felt then! He said he knew all the time I was driving too fast
and hurting something, and thought he had proved it by the
cylinders being hot--as though they aren't always hot. It was
awful how stupid he was and helpless and disagreeable. He
couldn't even crank properly and the engine back-fired on him and
hurt his hand. Finally I got so desperate that I sat down and
cried, while he nursed his hand and said we ought to desert the
machine and go home, and that papa would be anxious if we didn't
turn up to lunch. I knew all the time he was talking about his
lunch. You don't know what an Englishman is if he isn't fed