By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, June 12, 1937.
“Look at that,” cried Jimmie Frise, “for a swell car.”
We were slowed up in Orillia, looking for a parking spot near our favorite eating place.
“Boy,” I said.
“Imagine having that to float around in,” said Jim. “How the miles would waft by.”
“Let’s have a look at it,” I suggested, “when we get out.”
We parked, and in our fishing togs, which attract no attention in a civilized town like Orillia, even if we are a little trampy, we strolled back to have a look at this masterpiece of modernity.
It was a kind of pigeon blood ruby color. Its nose was chromium. Inside, it was upholstered in yellow buff whipcord. Its wheel and other driving appurtenances were casually and widely dispersed, giving the impression of great space within. It was a convertible touring sedan which could be transformed, with the twiddling of a couple of fat, casual looking knobs, into an open car under the divine sun of June.
“Ah, Jimmie,” I sighed, “it is wicked to leave a car like this around for common people to see.”
“Do you realize,” said Jim quietly, “that this is one of the cars you can get for about $40 a month?”
“For how many years?” I scoffed.
“And your old car,” said Jim.
We walked slowly around the magnificence. There was a drop-down arm in the middle of the back seat, a fat, comfortable thing on which you could rest your elbow as you sped through space, dreaming at the lovely Canadian landscape.
“Jim,” I declared, “rich men ought to know better than leave cars like this around where people can look at them. It breeds discontent. This car is a Communist agitator of the worst type.”
“Who do you suppose owns it?” asked Jim. “It looks like an Orillia license plate.”
“Some millionaire,” I said. “Maybe one of those rich ‘county families’ we’re developing in Canada, the way they have them in England.”
“I would be willing to bet,” stated Jim, “that the owner of this car is some plain guy like us. Some fellow making a moderate salary who has enough sense to live while he can.”
“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may1,” I sighed, taking another stroll around the gorgeous creation.
“Exactly,” said Jim. “After all, what rule is there that forbids a man to have a princely car, even though he lives in a cheap boarding house?”
“Let’s eat,” I suggested sadly.
We went in and ordered ham and egg sandwiches and coffee and apple pie.
“As I was saying,” said Jim, leaning back, “why should a poor man not have a rich car? What rule requires that he should have a house and good clothes and a bank balance before he can own a three thousand dollar car?”
“I suppose,” I said, “there really is no reason.”
Folly of the Old Order
“When we were boys,” expanded Jim, “the rule was that each man should have a home more or less in keeping with his class. The bankers and big business men lived in one neighborhood. In another, the professional and manager class lived. Next, came the well-to-do store keepers, clerks, superintendents and so forth. Next, the mechanics, and so on. You had to live, outwardly, in your home and your clothes and your general appearances, according to your classification. All that is gone.”
“Not altogether,” I disagreed.
“Well, you can’t tell from anybody’s clothes nowadays who or what they are,” stated Jim. “And from the outside of a house, you can’t guess, with any degree of accuracy, who lives within. Plenty of shopkeepers and superintendents are living up among the bankers and presidents and any number of presidents and chairmen of the board are living in old houses down amongst the stenographers and jazz band violinists.”
“True,” said I.
“In other words,” said Jim, “appearances don’t count any more. A man is free to choose, as he never was in days gone by. If a rich man wants to live modestly and unpretentiously, there is no rule of society to penalize him for not living up to his class. If a poor man wants to buy fine clothes and swank around, after working hours, as a gentleman, nobody cares any more. If he is a gentleman, in his character, I mean, there is nothing to prevent him dressing like one. See?”
“How do you work this argument around to cars?” I asked, eyeing the ruby snout of the royal equipage through the restaurant door.
“A few years ago, when cars became fairly common,” said Jim, “it was a sort of rule of the game, a hang-over from the older order of things, that people should stick to the grade in keeping with their house and neighborhood. If a man in a low-price-class street blossomed out with a $2,000 car, it caused some snootings.”
“I remember my slow rise,” I confessed, “from high-behind black flivvers, up through sixes to eights. I remember perfectly, the dreadful sense of dissipation I had when I got my first blue car.”
“Exactly,” said Jim. “But we have just showed up the folly of that old order of society. We saw thousands and thousands of people who devoted their whole lives to saving and scraping to buy a decent little home, only to lose it in the smash. We saw people who denied themselves every luxury only to be kicked around just the same as the wasters and careless spenders.”
“It won’t be a lesson to them,” I declared. “People will go right on being thrifty. Mark my words.”
“I see no reason,” said Jim, “why a man should not own a swell three-thousand-dollar car and take what enjoyment he can out of life, instead of slaving all his life to buy a home, only to lose it.”
“I agree,” I said nervously. For that winey creation outside seemed fairly to bloom at me through the window.
The ham and egg sandwiches arrived and Jim and I fell to. It was still a hundred miles to the fishing ground we had in mind, and we wanted to arrive in time to have a fling at the evening rise.
A Friendly Stranger
As we ate sandwiches, a man walked in the restaurant and, after glancing around, came straight to us.
“Are you the gentlemen who were admiring my car?” he asked.
“Your car?” I exclaimed. “Is that your car?”
He was a middle-aged man; he was dressed in khaki trousers and a shabby old tweed coat, and there was a little stubble on his chin.
“Yes,” he chuckled. “How do you like it?”
“It’s gorgeous,” I cried. “But how extraordinary, we were just talking….”
“Pardon me, gentlemen,” he said, sitting down on the edge of the cubicle seat confidentially, “but here are the facts. I am subject to arthritis. This arm is suddenly gone crippled on me. I’ve just been into a doctor’s here, but he can’t do much, I’m sorry to say. Now, I noticed you looking at the car and the thought just occurred to me, maybe one of you would be kind enough, if you’re going north, to drive it for me. How far are you going?”
“Sundridge,” said Jim eagerly.
“Why,” cried the stranger, “how odd. That’s exactly where I’m going. And when are you coming back?”
“To-morrow night,” I said.
“Splendid,” said the stranger, rising hurriedly. “What do you say? You come in my car and leave yours here. It will be quite all right, just where it is. And I’ll drop you here to-morrow evening.”
Jim and I were both hurrying with the last of the sandwiches.
“I’m sorry to rush you,” said the stranger. “But as I have lost more than an hour with this arm…”
“It’s quite all right, sir,” we assured him excitedly.
As we paid our check, I muttered to Jim:
“What a chance. We’ll take turn about.”
“All my life,” chuckled Jim, “I’ve wanted to sit behind the wheel of a boat like that.”
When we came outside, the stranger, who introduced himself as Mr. Anderson, halted us:
“I have a better idea,” he suggested. “A mile north of here is a tourist camp. One of you drive your car out there and the other drive me. We can shift your baggage there and then there can be no complaints about parking here all night.”
“O.K. Jim,” I cried, “I’ll drive ours. I know the place he means.”
I trotted up to our car and tooled it out into traffic and away. In my rear view, I presently beheld the long, low pigeon blood coming behind. It slid past me like a greyhound past a scottie, and I put on all speed I had to keep in sight. Jim and Mr. Ander- son smiled lazily at me as they passed.
By the time we reached the tourist camp, they were waiting, and the three of us threw our stuff into the back of the big car.
“Good-by, Lizzie2,” we cried and with a smooth leap like a modern elevator starting. we swung out into the highway and with scarcely a sound, bore into the northerly and sunlit breeze.
“Watch for speed cops,” laughed Mr. Anderson. “I’ll pay the fines, but….”
“Don’t fear,” sang Jimmie, slouching under the big wheel, “I’ve got an eye for them.”
And for a little while, we just sat, rejoicing in the feel of it, the ecstasy, the joy of immense, effortless power. Mr. Anderson shifted his position so as to turn a friendly face on me and, as he explained, just to keep a weather eye behind for speed cops.
“I Solved That Question”
“Mr. Anderson,” I said, “excuse me for being so bold, but my friend and I were just talking about this car and the probable owner. May I ask what line of business you’re in?”
“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed Mr. Anderson gaily. “My appearance puzzles you, eh? Well, sir, I’m a decorator and paper-hanger.”
“Contractor?” I suggested respectfully.
“No, sir,” said he, laughing. “Not even a contractor. Just a plain journeyman painter and paper-hanger. But I am unmarried. I have saved my money. And I allow myself only one luxury. And that is the finest car money can buy.”
“Jim,” I cried, “did you hear that?”
“I sure did,” called Jim, winding the great car through the twists of Washago already.
“Mr. Anderson,” I said, “it’s the most curious coincidence, but my friend and I were actually talking about that sort of thing when you came into the restaurant. We were saying, why should not a man of modest means devote his life to a lovely car, a thing of joy and beauty, just as much as to a house and lot, or the usual properties a man slaves for?”
“Well, I solved that question years ago,” said Mr. Anderson, emphatically. “This is the third high-price car I’ve owned. I work all fall, winter and spring. I hardly spend anything on living. Why should I? But in summer, I set forth. I put my little baggage in the trunk behind. I travel wherever I like, in utter comfort and style. Last year I was all over the west, Yellowstone Park, the Rockies.”
“Easy, Jim,” I warned, as we plunged through the aisles of the first Muskoka woods.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Anderson, “I’m the Hobo de Luxe. And you can tie all the millstones of property around your neck you like. I want nothing but this. And you can’t get it in cheaper cars.”
“I should say not, I agreed, lolling back in the deep luxurious seat, stroking the whipcord, dropping my ashes into the silver ash container at my hand. “The turn-in value of these big cars,” said Mr. Anderson. “Ah!”
He looked sharply out the rear window.
“Jim,” I cried, looking back. “Two speed cops. Racing neck and neck.”
“Will I run away from them?” asked Jim. “Or slow down?”
“Give them a run for their money,” laughed Mr. Anderson. The fine will be the same at the speed we’re doing now anyway.”
“O.K.,” laughed Jim, crouching, and I felt the great car fairly lift.
“We’ll soon be in Gravenhurst,” I shouted.
“They’ll get us there anyway. Let’s slow this side of it.”
Jim took his foot off and we began to slacken our glorious, bird-like flight through space. I could see the cops riding neck and neck, gaining. They went by us in a terrific spurt and wavered ahead of us and we all slowed and pulled to the shoulder of the road. They came back, shifting at their belts and lifting their goggles.
“Three of you, eh?” said the larger cop.
“This gentleman,” I explained, “will accept all charges.”
I smiled at Mr. Anderson, but he, as a matter of fact, disappeared. Instead of the easy-mannered, smiling Mr. Anderson, there was cringing in the front seat beside Jimmie a pale frightened little man, eyes wide and startled, his stubbled chin grotesquely fallen. His shoulders were hunched so that his shabby coat collar stuck up around his neck, giving him an air of decrepitude and age.
“Mr. Anderson,” I said sharply.
“What is this?” whined Mr. Anderson.
“Yeah, what is this?” demanded both cops.
“Why,” I shouted, “this gentleman owns this car and he said…”
“Me?” whined Mr. Anderson. “Me own it? Hah, hah, hah. Why, officer, these gentlemen picked me up not ten miles back. I was thumbin’ my way, and they stopped for me. Is there anythin’ wrong?”
“Anything wrong?” scoffed the cops. “Did these birds steal the most conspicuous car in the whole of Ontario! Come on, get out.”
Mr. Anderson wriggled out of the car abjectly.
“Come on, you,” said the cop that got in beside Jim. “Turn her around. Whose junk is this in the back? Yours, eh? Well, I’ll be jiggered.”
“But this man?” I yelled. “Mr. Anderson!”
“Go on, quit your kidding,” said the cop. “I’ve seen him on these roads for the past month. Beat it, bo3, and keep on going.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mr. Anderson. One cop rode with us, having parked his cycle, and the other followed. We drove back to Orillia. We explained it several times to the cop. We stopped in the tourist camp and showed him our car, where we had left it. We got out our identification cards and licenses. We declared ourselves to be respectable citizens who had no reason on earth to steal anybody’s car, least of all a million-dollar-job like this.
We went back to town and met the owner, a stout, furious man who eyed us with horror and dusted off the seats of his car with his handkerchief.
“This is what happened!” he yelled at us all. “I came out of the bank and got in the car. I put the key in the lock and then suddenly recalled that I had not spoken to the manager on a matter of importance, and I slipped back into the bank for a moment. When I came out, the car was gone.”
“It was then,” I insisted, “that this Anderson slipped into the restaurant and made us the offer of a drive in his car.”
“A heck of a tale,” laughed the cops, “he was a bum. Just a bum. Do you mean to say you accepted that story from him?”
“Chase after him and catch him,” I cried.
“We have his story,” said the cop. “You picked him up thumbing on the road.”
“Well, it was this way,” we explained. “We were talking about poor men owning rich cars, see, and….”
Well, it was nearly four p.m. by the time the explanation seemed to sound good enough, even to us; and that being too late for Sundridge, we just went east of Orillia to some trout creeks we know. But we didn’t get anything.
Editor’s Notes:
- “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may” is a famous line from the poem “To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time” by Robert Herrick. It’s a call to seize the day. ↩︎
- “Tin Lizzie” was slang for an old, often dilapidated, car. It was was often used to describe a Ford Model T which was a cheap, old car in the 1930s. ↩︎
- “Bo” was slang, short for Hobo. ↩︎
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