Tag: Cars Page 1 of 2

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, November 14, 1942.

“Come on,” said Jimmie Frise, sticking his head in the door, “I’ll drive you home.”

“Thanks, Jim,” I responded, “but I think I’ll just take the street car. I have a few things to do.”

“I’ll wait,” said Jim, coming in and sitting down.

“No, no: you go on, Jim,” I urged. “I don’t know how soon I’ll be ready.”

“Heck, it’s nearly supper time,” said Jim. “I’ll wait.”

“Jim, to be perfectly frank,” I submitted. “I prefer to go home by street car. I’ve sort of got into the way of it now. I actually look forward to my nice, comfortable ride home before supper…”

“Nice,” scoffed Jimmie indignantly. “Comfortable. With people trampling all over you? Besides, it’s raining cats and dogs.”

“Please, Jim,” I interrupted him.

“At my age, a man likes to follow a routine. I have got into the way….”

Jimmie rose from the chair and looked at me a little hotly.

“For the first time in weeks,” he said, “I have brought my car down to work. Just to loosen up the grease. Just to turn the battery over. And it’s raining. And I offer you a lift…”

“It should be a treat, Jim,” I confessed, “but somehow it isn’t. I haven’t the slightest desire to ride home in a motor car any more. The very idea of it bores me. I can’t understand how, for years and years, I went to all the trouble and nuisance of motoring to work. The trouble of getting the car out of the garage, unlocking and locking the doors: the business of wheeling it out into the street and entering traffic. The dreary business of sizzling along the Lake Shore Road in a stampede of cars. The slow nerve-pulling business of struggling up through the downtown nine o’clock traffic and fighting my way into the parking station. I look back on those days with a kind of horror. There wasn’t a day of it that I did not get myself into a temper, with my blood pressure all steamed up, over some other driver. Either somebody drove too fast or somebody cut in on me. Or downtown, somebody sneaked up on the wrong side of me, at a stop-light, and tried to get the jump past me. I didn’t realize, until I started using the street car, how much of an endless quarrel driving oneself to work was.”

“Look at the rain,” said Jim, going over and staring out the window.

“Once you get used to the street car,” I pursued firmly, “nothing compares with it. It is effortless. Tired after the day’s work, you climb on board and sag down into your seat…”

“If you can get a seat,” put in Jim.

“…and you can practically snooze all the way home. You can read the newspaper. I haven’t read the newspaper for years as thoroughly as I have the past few months of street car riding. In the old days, when I drove to and from work, all I did was take a quick gander at the headlines. Now I even read the editorials.”

“Clear up your desk,” said Jim. “And let’s get going.”

The Comfortable Feeling

“Jim,” I pleaded, “you go on. I’ll be quite a few minutes yet. I have a couple of things I want to read on the way home in the street car tonight. I won’t get another opportunity. I have set these things aside all day to read on the way home.”

“Read them in my car,” said Jim. “I’ll turn on that little dome light in the car.”

“One of the things about street cars is,” I said resolutely, “that you don’t have to talk to anybody. Very rarely do you know anybody in a street car. And if you do, they usually have got a seat already, and don’t come bothering you. In a street car, you just nod at your friends and hurry past to find a seat all by your lovely lonesome. A street car ride, you might say, offers you about the only real solitude you will find all day. It is the only escape from your family or from your office. You are completely and happily alone. You can read. Or you can just sit and look out the window.”

Jim was standing looking at me very hurt.

“What you are saying is,” he accused, “that you don’t want my company home? Is that it?”

“I have your company all day at the office,” I pointed out kindly.

“So you’re tired of my company,” said Jim, walking towards the door.

“If you don’t want to understand me, Jim,” I said. “All I am trying to do is preserve to myself a little new-found liberty and freedom that I have discovered in the morning and the evening. A little solitude…”

“Good-night,” said Jim hollowly, passing out the door.

After thirty years of partnership, you can’t allow even these little misunderstandings to distress an old friend. So I leaped up and grabbed my coat and hat and caught Jim at the elevator.

“After all, it’s a filthy night,” I grinned at him. “And besides, we’re having pot roast at my house tonight. I’d forgotten that.”

Jim said nothing.

“When we have pot roast,” I added, as we went down in the elevator, “it is good to get home a little ahead of time, so you can go into the kitchen and smell it cooking. Half the virtue of a pot roast is the way it excites your appetite.”

The way the people in the elevator turned and looked down at me, especially the business girls who were probably going home to get something out of the ice box, spurred me on:

“Pot roast,” I gloated. “With carrots, white onions, several stalks of celery and especially the leaves of the celery. I think it is the leaves of the celery, in a pot roast, that give it that…”

One girl groaned. So I quit.

Outside, the rain pelted cold and hissing. We ducked along in shelter of the buildings and reached Jim’s parking lot and picked our way across the muddy expanse.

“A fine night,” cried Jim, “to stand on a street corner waiting for a car!”

“It’s astonishing,” I said, sliding into the car seat, “how skilful you become at finding shelter, when you are a street car traveller.”

Jim drove out the parking lot, peering anxiously through the flooding windshield. The downtown was jammed with cars, street cars and trucks and dark huddled swarms of home-goers blindly bending along.

“The worse the night,” observed Jimmie, “the worse the traffic. I bet you would have to wait ten or fifteen minutes for a street car on a night like this.”

“All exaggeration,” I assured him, “arising from the impatience born of the motor car age. I have timed myself, even on nights like this; and the longest wait isn’t five minutes.”

“And then you get into a steaming car,” snorted Jim, “and some girl’s umbrella trickles water down your pant leg!”

We made a turn, with motor cars honking at us savagely and street car bells clanging and muttered curses coming through the windows from the pedestrians. Jim was sitting up stiff at the wheel, tense and strained, peering through the windshield like the pilot of a bomber over Saarbrucken.

“It’s restful, once you’re aboard a street car,” I submitted.

“Do you want to get out?” demanded Jim sharply.

“Go ahead, go ahead,” I said hastily.

Tense While Driving

And down the jammed street we toiled, in slow lurches and jolts, three blocks to the Lake Shore highway, where the stampede flattened itself out into the long race home.

The traffic balked and speeded; even in this wide highway, with no cross streets to harry it, traffic still pulled at all the nerves, the car ahead suddenly slacking, the car behind screeching up on you, and cars beside racing past, with arrogant horns braying….

“I’d almost forgotten what it was like,” I mused.

“I hope I’m not boring you,” remarked Jim.

“Take it easy, don’t hurry for me, Jim,” I assured him.

And he relapsed into another silence, sitting tense and stiff at the wheel, staring through the floody windshield.

We got a little way past the ball park when I noticed the car swaying.

“You’ve got a soft tire, Jim,” I warned.

“Feels like it,” admitted Jimmie grudgingly.

The car gave another swerve on the streaming pavement. Jim steered cautiously for the curb, not without a few angry snorts from cars behind.

“Well, well, well,” was all I said.

“Sit still,” said Jim, starting to get out. In a moment he came back and said through the window that the left rear tire was flat as a pancake.

In the gathering dusk, we looked ahead and then looked behind. The nearest service station was a good half-mile. The stampede of cars raced ruthlessly past us.

“I could drive it,” speculated Jim through the car window, “but it would finish the tire. And tires, these days….”

“Don’t think of it, Jim,” I declared. “Put the spare on. I’ll give you a hand….”

“Sit still, sit still,” pleaded Jim. “It won’t take five minutes.”

But you can’t sit still in a car, on a wild and stormy night, and think of your friend out there alone. So I turned up my collar and got out and joined him. He had the jack out and was figuring how he could get it under the car without getting his knees wet, when I gave the spare a thump with my fist. “Your spare has no air in it,” I informed him.

He stood up and felt the spare.

“It’s got enough,” he muttered. But on shoving at it with the handle of the jack, it proved to be as I had said. Soft.

“I’ll thumb a lift ahead to a service station,” said Jim, “and take the spare with me. And I’ll be back in the tow truck in five minutes.”

I thought of the pot roast and was on the point of suggesting that I too might thumb a lift and get home somehow. Once I could get near a street car line, I would be all right. But down here on the Lake Shore Drive, it is a long hike to a street car line. Then I thought of how Jimmie would feel.

He soon had the spare tire unhitched. And with it for a sign and symbol of distress, he had no trouble getting a lift. A dirty old car with five smudgy and big-hearted war workers pulled up; and tire and all, Jimmie was invited in. He waved me good-by.

After at least 17 minutes, in which time I got so expert at remembering how a pot roast smells that I was practically watering at the mouth, I saw the tow truck slow down across the street and after nearly a minute and a half of trying to make the turn against traffic, it drew in behind.

“Sorry,” cried Jimmie, “but I had to try three service stations.”

And in about four minutes, the service station man had the spare on and the old tire back in his truck.

“I’ll pick it up tomorrow,” said Jim, as we drove off.

The tow truck whizzed past us, in the manner of tow trucks that belong to service stations that shut up bang at seven sharp.

We got along near the Exhibition Grounds when the engine gave a couple of funny coughs and jerked.

“What the…” said Jim grimly.

But there was no mistaking that sound. After another 50 yards, the engine barked and coughed several times and then quit.

“Out of gas,” I submitted.

“Don’t be crazy,” growled Jimmie. “I put three gallons in only last Tuesday.”

But the gauge showed empty and the dry jack handle Jimmie explored with down in the tank showed empty. And it was empty.

“Well, thank goodness,” said Jim, appearing at the car door all wet, “there’s a hill ahead only a little way and we can coast down it and turn up beside the Park, where there’s a gas station.”

Back to Street Cars

So I got out and we shoved the car about 100 yards, not without numerous helpful comments from car horns from behind, to the start of the slope down to Sunnyside. And when the car took the slope, Jim jumped in and seized the wheel and I ran and boarded her. And down the slope we coasted, not too fast, so as to let a clear place in traffic grow ahead of us so that we could get fullest advantage of the coast. This caused quite a lot of horn comment from behind us.

But we coasted almost to the Merry-Go- Round before our momentum died. And from the Merry-Go-Round to the Park is about 300 yards.

And at last we shoved her into the nearest service station.

“I certainly feel terribly,” said Jim, as we ran her stern level with the attendant waiting with the hose. “Keeping you all this time. I had only the kindest intentions…”

“Forget it, Jim,” I assured him. “This only makes a more confirmed street car passenger of me.”

“But that pot roast?” said Jim, feeling in his pockets.

“A pot roast is all the better of a little longer cooking,” I informed him.

The attendant laid the end of the nozzle in Jim’s gas tank.

Jimmie was still feeling in his pockets.

“Holy!” he suddenly exclaimed, snatching his hand out of his pocket as if he had been stung.

“What is it?” I demanded.

“I lent the ration book to the kids last week…” he said.

“Hmmm,” said the attendant, lifting the nozzle out of Jim’s tank.

We explained the situation to the man

“The law,” he said, “is the law. Besides, there is the darndest lot of chisellers.”

So we shoved the car off to one side on the service station lot.

“I’ll pick it up in the morning,” said Jimmie brokenly to the attendant, who was already looking at his watch.

And in the rain, we walked three blocks back east from the Park to Roncesvalles where we caught a street car.

And the family was just finishing the deep apple pie when I walked in.

“Oh, those street cars,” said my wife.

But the pot roast couldn’t have been better.

Editor’s Notes: Because of gasoline rationing during World War 2, Greg has been taking the streetcar to work, and Jim decides to take his car out for a day to make sure it does not seize up from being parked too long.

The illustration advertises the “Send Over Smokes” campaign that Greg wrote about earlier.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 17, 1937.

“Policemen,” said Jimmie Frise, “always ought to be in motor cars; not on motor cycles.”

“The law,” I disagreed, “is a game. If you can see a cop on a motorcycle, it’s fair. It is conceded in all civilized countries that cops should not be allowed to hide.”

“Modern traffic,” said Jim, who was watching me steer my car amidst the hot and anxious outward bound traffic of Saturday noon, “modern traffic has got past the amusement stage. It’s a game no longer. Now that the Ontario speed limit has been increased from 35 miles an hour on highways to 50 miles, and in cities and towns from 20 up to 30 miles an hour, a strange and grim psychological factor has emerged.”

“What’s that?” I inquired.

“When the law was 35 miles an hour,” said Jim, “hardly anybody obeyed it. But the knowledge that we were exceeding the limit gave us all a margin of caution. We were alert. Being already guilty of one breach of the law, to wit, going faster than 35, we were a little cautious about breaking it any other way. We were wide awake in the first place for speed cops. We had a guilty conscience, even if only a subconscious or semi-conscious guilty conscience. It made us careful, alert.”

“I follow you,” I confessed.

“Now that the law is 50,¹” went on Jim, “that guilty conscience has evaporated. The only sense of guilt we have is when we are driving less than 50, and we wonder if other drivers are put out with us for not keeping up with the Joneses”.

“I believe you’re right,” I admitted, stepping slightly on the gas to increase my speed from 34 to 37.

“Now, a sense of guilt,” explained Jim, “is one of the greatest and most humane of civilized forces. It is our general sense of guilt that makes us kindly, tolerant and good natured towards our fellow men.”

A large blue car swerved angrily past us and the lady in the near seat turned and said something bitter to me. I couldn’t hear her words but if I put the right meaning to the shape of her mouth, that lady certainly is no lady.

“See?” cried Jim. “Before the law was changed, her sense of guilt would have prevented her from cursing you. Now she is free to call you names if you aren’t doing at least 50.”

“Psychology is a funny thing,” I mused.

“No, it’s human nature is funny,” agonized Jim. “With no need for caution under 50 miles an hour as far as cops are concerned, old rattletrap cars that should not ever exceed 30 miles an hour are going to be going as near 50 as they can. And every instant they are on the road they are a menace to human life.”

“There goes one now,” I said, as a shabby old top-heavy sedan with narrow tires of the vintage of 1925, slithered past us and did a sort of Charlie Chaplin skid to get straight on the pavement again.

To Miss the Old Fear

“Then,” said Jim, “plenty of drivers of perfect cars, as far as mechanism is concerned, but who intellectually are incapable of driving more than 40 miles an hour – you know, the kind of people who are clumsy and always spilling things and bumping into things are going to miss that old restraining fear of cops sorely. Such people really need that fear. Without it, they are helpless.”

“Listen to that,” I murmured, as a car behind me continued to snort its horn savagely until I got away over to the side of the pavement. And when it passed, four furious faces leaned and glared out the windows at me.

“You take the young fellow driving one of those rattletrap old cars,” said Jim. “He has, for instance, three other young people in the car with him. He is going 35, which is all the machine is capable of without swerving right off the road. When his companions egg him on to greater speed, he had, heretofore, the excuse that there is a speed cop usually on the top of the hill ahead. But now, what excuse can he offer? Will he say his car is too poor and rickety to risk any more speed? No young man could admit any such thing. So what does he do? He tries for 50 and the admiration of his companions. And just as he lurches and slithers over the top of that next hill, who does he collide with or send head over heels into the ditch but a perfectly nice lady with a carload of children, going 40 miles an hour?”

“It’s bad,” I admitted, as a car driven by a white-haired old lady zipped past me, going about 60.

“Motorcycle cops, therefore,” said Jim, “should be abolished and police should be equipped with ordinary cars of various makes and colors. So that the motorists never know but what the car behind them or the car coming towards them is police.”

“Ah,” I agreed. “A new hazard. A new fear.”

“Correct,” said Jim. “And the police should be most active on the highways, touring day and night at a brisk pace, watching for cutter-ins, hill passers, curve passers; they should pursue and give an official warning to all drivers of old ashcans that were driving at any speed that made them wobble and lurch. Fines for recklessness should never be less than $25², so that for all fools there would be a real terror of coming too fast around curves or attempting to pass without reasonable distance being given.”

“We must put some sort of fear into them,” I declared, for now we were outside the city and on to a wider strip of pavement so that the traffic behind, which had been fairly patient, now began to get excited like lions at feeding time at the zoo and start to zip and cut and swerve and duck in their anxiety to get ahead.

“What’s the good of their doing that?” demanded Jim. “Don’t they realize that there is a line-up for miles ahead of them? What good is it going to do them to scare the wits out of you by cutting in ahead of you with two seconds to spare, when they are going to have to keep that up all the way to Muskoka?”

“It’s a nervous sort of thrill. I suppose,” I said. “It’s like gambling. Like roulette. They would go to sleep if they had to drive steadily. Only by hop-scotching around like that do they keep awake.”

“I wish there were double the cops,” said Jim, “and all incognito in plain cars. That would stop those St. Vitus dance³ drivers. We ought to adopt the system of having a big red enamel patch painted on the back of every car that is convicted of reckless driving. With three patches on your car, 30 miles an hour is your absolute limit. You’d feel like a marked man then, and behave.”

“Look Who’s Ahead of Us”

“Boy, did you see that?” I breathed as two cars, chasing each other at 50 miles an hour, both dove back into the line ahead of us to make way for a big passenger bus coming tearing along in the opposite direction at 50, too.

I had to change gears on account of the sudden stoppage the cutting in of the two cars ahead had created. Minute by minute as we got out into the country it grew worse. Those who knew the law was 50 miles an hour wanted to go 50, and were indignant at all those who didn’t. They kept cutting out and in and charging ahead until in a little while the congestion ahead of us was so bad we were not only slowed to 30 miles but gradually formed a solid line, and frequent dead stops were necessary.

“Oh,” I snarled, “where are the cops?”

“The only way to travel nowadays,” said Jim, “is by aeroplane. No self-respecting citizen will stay on the roads much longer.”

It was hot. It was gassey. It was nerve-racking and on-edgey. The farther people were behind us the more anxious they were to get ahead. And every time the down traffic left space, 40 cars behind us leaped out of line and formed a double line, racing past us until down-coming trucks or cars forced them back into our line; and with fury we had to make room for them. It meant a stop almost every time.

“Get out into the swim,” said Jim, at last. “You jump, too. Everybody else is doing it.”

“Not me,” said I.

“It’ll thin out a few miles north,” coaxed Jim. “The sooner we get there, the sooner this strain will be over.”

“I’m safer where I am,” I said. “In line.”

But in a few moments, the car that had been ahead of me for several miles decided it was getting too thick and it made the jump and got into the scramble.

“Not me,” I cried triumphantly. “Look at whose ahead of us now!”

“It’s cops,” said Jim.

And sure enough, in the car now immediately ahead of us, were the round heads and flat caps of two large cops sitting the stiff way cops sit at the wheel of a car.

“They’re only doing 32,” said Jim looking at my speedometer.

“It’ll do me too,” I said, settling comfortably in back of the cops.

“Now,” chuckled Jim, “watch these cutter-inners when they see the cops.”

But it made no apparent difference. The minute down traffic left a hole, out leaped about ten times more cars than the hole would accommodate and the minute the down traffic came level, all these birds had to scrunch back into line and everybody had to grab and brake and swear and change gears.

“I guess they don’t see they’re cops,” said Jim.

“Why don’t the cops do something, instead of just jogging along?” I demanded hotly.

“Pass them,” advised Jim.

“Not me,” I said. “I respect law and order. Those cops are at least setting an example of orderly driving.”

“And nobody even looks at them,” scoffed Jim.

“What good could they do?” he went on. “In a jam like this?”

“One of them could stand on the running board,” I suggested, “and hold out his hand to warn those behind not to try to pass. In ten minutes the congestion ahead would sort itself out and we could all do 40. It’s that crowding ahead that makes us all go slow.”

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” said Jim.

“Very well,” I said.

With a Baleful Look

So we continued, in regular series of mixups, of grinding and braking and starting and slowing and horns blowing and swearing and cussing as the impatient miles went by. Every time there was a jam-up and cars head would try to cut in ahead of me I would blow my horn furiously in the hope of rousing those two cops ahead from their lethargy.

“What’s the matter with them?” I shouted. “Sitting there. Like dummies. With all this murder going on.”

“Hire a hall,” said Jim.

He sank down in his seat and closed his eyes.

We came to a town. Jim woke and sat up. In the business block, traffic stopped dead for a minute, and one of the cops in the car ahead prepared to get out.

Heavily he backed out the car door. He was in a khaki uniform and with him, hugged to his breast, he backed out a large brass horn.

“Pah-ha-ha,” roared Jim. “A bandsman. A tuba player.”

“Well, I’ll be….” I admitted a little ruefully.

“There you go,” laughed Jim, “always taken in by appearances. Abusing the cops and it was just a couple of lads from the town band.”

Traffic began to move again and we tooled through the town and the minute we got outside, the panic began again, cars leaping, swerving, ducking.

“Well,” asked Jim, “are you going to stick behind the piccolo player?”

“Heh, heh, heh,” I said, taking a quick look behind and then swerving out.

I stepped on the gas and leaped past the bandsman’s car.

“Yah,” I roared out past Jim, “yah, you big windbag, what are holding up traffic for?”

“Nix,” hissed Jim. “It is a cop!”

And it was.

“Ow,” I said, ducking back into line. “It was a cop, giving a guy a lift from the band.”

“Ow,” said Jim, craning his neck to look in the mirror. “He’s after you.”

In a minute, I saw a car creep alongside. It’s horn tooted sharply. I looked. The cop, with a baleful north of Ireland look in his green eyes, was signalling me languidly to pull off to the side.

I took to the shoulder carefully, so as to allow the line behind to pass. The cop pulled in ahead of me, got out and walked back, hitching his belt.

“What was that,” said the cop, resting his elbow on my door, “you said to me as you passed?”

“Huh?” I asked. “Said to you? I wasn’t speaking to you.”

“Oh, yes you was,” said the cop. “What was it about me blocking traffic? Big wind-bag or something?”

“Oh, that?” I laughed heartily. “Oh, that? Oh. I was speaking to my friend here, my friends, he’s deaf, see? I have to shout at him. Oh, ha, ha, did you think… Oh, ha ha, Jimmie,” I shouted in Jim’s ear, “the policeman thinks I was shouting at him.”

“Did he?” said Jim.

“Yes,” I roared in Jim’s ear. “Isn’t that funny?”

“Heh, heh, heh,” laughed Jim, fairly heartily.

“Well, anyway,” said the cop. taking a long slow look at me. “I don’t like the way you cut in and out in traffic. You’ll be the death of somebody if you keep that up.”

“Why, officer,” I cried, “everybody is cutting in and out. Just look at them.”

“Yes.” said the constable, “but not right under the nose of a policeman. I’d better see your driver’s license, mister.”

And he took down all my particulars, tested my lights, brakes, horn and wanted to see my spare light bulbs which I promised him I’d buy at the next town. And all the time the traffic fought and snarled past us.

And then he got in his car and drove ahead of us 24 miles at 28 miles an hour.

Editor’s Notes:

1. Ontario’s first province-wide speed limit on rural highways was introduced in 1903 at 15 mph (24 km/h). The speed limit was increased to 25 mph (40 km/h) by the early 1920s and increased further to 35 mph (56 km/h) by the late 1920s. The speed limit on most rural highways was increased to 50 mph (80 km/h) in May 1937. During World War II, the speed limits were temporarily lowered to 40 mph (65 km/h) to conserve Canada’s fuel supplies. The next speed limit increase took place in 1959, when the speed limit for passenger cars using the new superhighways such as Highway 400 and Highway 401 was changed to 60 mph (100 km/h). ↩︎
2. $25 in 1937 would be $528 in 2014. ↩︎
3. St. Vitus’ Dance was diagnosed, in the 17th century as Sydenham chorea. The old term hung around for a while. ↩︎

Jim, with the help of Greg and a few friends, works out a plan to beat the used car dealers at their own game. But…

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, April 24, 1948.

“I’ve decided,” announced Jimmie Frise, “to sell my car.”

“Jim, you’re crazy!” I exclaimed.

“No: I’ve just decided I’m smart,” he declared. “I’m going to cut the price of my new car by $600².”

“But you told me last night,” I protested, “that the car dealer said he couldn’t get you a new car until August or September.”

“Precisely,” agreed Jim. “The fact that summer is almost here, plus the extreme shortage of new cars, is what accounts for the fact that I can get $600 more for my old car than it’s worth.”

“You mean,” I cried, “that to make $600 you are going to do without a car all summer?”

“With a little co-operation from you,” admitted Jim, “that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Co-operation?” I queried.

“Yes,” said Jim. “You see, you are away at your summer cottage for two weeks in July, during which time your car stands idle in a tumble-down old rented garage up at the Landing. I figure you wouldn’t mind letting me have the use of your car during those two weeks…”

“Jim,” I interrupted. “There’s May, June, July and August…”

“Correct,” said Jim, “I’ve telephoned three or four others among my friends, checking their holiday schedules. There’s Bumpy and Bill Sparra and Harry Wilcox. They’re all taking their holidays at different times through the summer. And it so happens they are going to summer hotels up the lakes, where they abandon their cars, at the end of the highway, having to pay rent for garages…”

“Jim, look here,” I cut in sternly. “Use your common sense. How are you going to run all over the country, borrowing people’s cars?”

“It will be fun,” assured Jim. “It will be sort of like a holiday in itself. For example, when you go up to your cottage, I’ll go with you and drive your car back here and use it for the two weeks, bringing it up to the Landing the Sunday you are coming down. See?”

“But…” I began.

“You’d far rather,” cried Jim, “leave the car in my care than leave it in one of those baking summer resort garages, where anybody can break in!”

“I suppose that’s true,” I grudged.

“At any rate,” he announced, “if I sell my car now, at top prices, I get the new car for hundreds of dollars less, don’t you see? I bet I wouldn’t get $300 for it next September when my new car is ready. Yet I saw the same year and model as my car up at one of those used car lots for $900.”

“Surely not!” I scoffed. “Nine hundred dollars?”

“It’s a fact,” cried Jim. “I’ll drive you up and show you.”

“Still, to be without a car all summer,” I brooded, “is a pretty serious matter, Jim. In a sense, it’s really for summer – for the five months from May until October – that we own cars, most of us.”

“Exactly what has created the present market for used cars,” pointed out Jim. “The way to make easy money in this world is to take advantage of the weaknesses and needs of your fellow man. You’ll never get ahead in this world if you just work for wages or salary all your life. My new car next fall is going to cost $1,700. By taking advantage of the present market, as well as the good nature of half a dozen of my friends, I will buy that car for only $1,100. That’s what you call business.”

“You run certain risks,” I reminded him. “Suppose you crack up one of your friends’ cars?”

“I run that risk driving my own old jalopy,” countered Jim. “In fact, I will be far more careful driving your car and Bill Sparra’s and Harry Wilcox’s than I would my own. Every way you look at it, it’s a wise and shrewd move on my part.”

“Jim,” reflected, “there is a moral aspect to this business. If you did without a car all summer, that would be the price you pay for that $600 you are going to make. In other words, to earn $600, you sacrifice your car for the summer.”

“Are you hinting,” inquired Jim, “that you don’t want to lend me your car, when it’s lying idle anyway?”

“No, no!” I hastened. “I just feel there’s something immoral about this used car racket, selling old jalopies at outrageous prices, just by taking advantage of the widespread desire to drive cars in summer. If you were going to do without a car for the summer suppresses that natural desire, why, the $600 you would make would look quite so… so…”

“What I say,” declared Jim, “is, make use of every advantage in this world. Among the advantages we possess are a number of fine friends who would be glad to lend me their cars for a couple of weeks, partly for the sake of friendship, partly to see me make $600; and partly to save them the rent on those tumble-down summer resort garages where goodness knows what might happen to your car…”

“Okay, okay,” I surrendered. “And it will be $600 that won’t show in your income tax, Jim. I suppose the smartest guys in this world are the traders who make deals like this all the time. We salary and wage earners are the suckers.”

“I’ve been a sucker long enough,” said Jim, rising and pulling down his vest and lighting a cigarette with a very big-executive flourish. “It will give me a new self-respect, next fall, to be driving around in a car that cost me 600 bucks less than those of all the suckers I pass in traffic. Do you want to come up with me while I shop around and make the sale? Do you know any of these used car lot pirates?”

“The fact is,” I replied, “not only do I not know any of them, I’ve never seen any of them. I’ve looked at hundreds of used car lots in passing, but now that I come to think of it, I’ve never in my life seen anybody around them. Just a great big corner lot packed with motor cars sitting there. And no human inhabitant in sight.”

“Oh, they’ll be there, all right,” assured Jim. “They hide at the back, somewhere.”

So we went out to Jim’s garage and took a last look at Old Maud, Jim’s faithful schooner for more than 10 years. Many’s the thousands of miles it has carried us on fishing trips and hunting trips. Many’s the $10, $20 and $50 it has cost to have its engine overhauled, its brakes relined, its clutch repaired. Many’s the thousands of dollars’ worth of gas its rusty old engine has inhaled in our service.

“I’ll just get a pail of water and a rag,” said Jim, “and give her a wipe.”

While Jim was sponging off the exterior of Old Maud, he had me, with a whisk-broom, tidying up the interior, from the trunk compartment, I removed sundry personal odds and ends, such as a set of rusty chains, an old shovel and an accumulation of ancient car tools that had shaken themselves into out-of-the-way corners of the compartment.

“No wonder she’s rattled,” remarked Jim, as I passed him carrying an armful of salvage toward the garage. Jim sponged off the body, fenders and windows; and I took the hose and tidied up the wheels and spokes. Little by little, Old Maud took on a genteel if shabby expression. We hadn’t seen her so clean in years. But just the same, her scars showed more clearly.

“It’s better, perhaps,” pondered Jim, as we stood back and surveyed the old schooner, “not to tidy up an old car too much. It only accentuates its age, like cosmetics on an old woman.”.

“Anybody,” I stated, “who would pay $900 for an old crock like that is nuts.”

“Not nuts,” smiled Jim, patting the wobbly hood, “just summer madness.”

“Do you feel any twinges of sorrow on bidding goodbye to an old friend and faithful car like this?” I asked.

“Aw, no,” said Jim, lightly. “Some cars, like some people, can live too long. Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

“You won’t sell it right tonight!” I protested.

“If I get a decent offer, I’ll sell right now,” said Jim.

“But what about the family? Are they reconciled to being without a car?”

“I’ve explained the whole deal to them,” said Jimmie. “And they all are in complete agreement. I’ve promised to allow them $5 a week for taxis, in special cases of emergency. Then I figured you wouldn’t mind lending me your car once in a while, for special occasions…”

“Mmmmm,” I reflected.

“I’ve suggested the same to Bumpy and Bill Sparra and Harry Wilcox,” went on Jim. “The family figure we’ll be a lot better off, for a while, than we’ve been with Old Maud here.”

Jim waved me into the car and stepped on the starter. Old Maud’s starter whined and whimpered, and finally the engine exploded into life, and the usual fumes belched up through the worn matting on the floor boards.

“I’ll take you first,” shouted Jim, “to the place they have this same model at $900.

A few blocks away, we arrived at the large used car lot of McGrigor, Mortis & Co. A big banner over the entrance bore the company’s name and the legend: “Highest Prices Paid.”

Along the front of the lot, there was an array of the handsomest new cars you would see even at a motor show. Resplendent, shining, glittering, none of them showed the slightest sign of having been used at all. But as we drove in the lane, we saw that back of the glittering cars were close-packed ranks less glittering cars. And farther back still, were rows and rows of cars that didn’t glitter at all. These most backward ranks of cars all had prices painted on the windshield with whitewash. $375 or $500 or $625. Only the shabbiest cars had the indignity of prices painted on them.

Sure enough, as we drove down deep into the lot, a man emerged from a little shack and came toward us cautiously.

“Mr. McGrigor?” inquired Jimmie heartily, out the car window. “Or Mr. Mortis?”

“Neither,” said the gentleman. “They’re both in Florida. What can I do for you?”

“I was thinking of selling this car,” said Jim, as though in doubt.

“You might get somebody to buy it,” agreed the gent.

“What would you give me for it?” inquired Jim.

“How much do you want for it?” countered the used car man.

“Well, you’re the buyer,” smiled Jim. “What would you offer?”

“No, I’m not the buyer,” smiled the used car man, “I’m only interested in selling cars. How would $250 catch you?”

Jim was stunned.

“Two,” he croaked, “fifty!”

“That’s all it’s worth to me,” said the used car man.

“But…” sputtered Jim, “right over there is the same model as this offered at $900!”

“Aw, sure,” said the used car man, “but that car has a new engine in it and only two years ago it had a new transmission and rear end. We’ve put a lot of work on that, the same as we would with this if we bought it.”

“Two fifty!” fumed Jim. “Why, I’ll sell it privately, I’ll advertise it…”

“Sure, sure,” laughed the used car man, “and in about a month, the buyer will be back with it, saying you misrepresented it; and he’ll sue you unless you give him back $400.”

“Do they sue you?” demanded Jim bitterly.

“Aw, no,” explained the used car man. “We do a lot of work on the cars we take in. And in the contract of sale, we make mention of all the work done, see. How about $250?”

Jim did not answer. He backed Old Maud out the lane, and in silence we drove back home.

As he turned off the ignition in the side drive, Jimmie spoke for the first time.

“Imagine,” he said tenderly, “imagine selling a faithful, wonderful old car like this for $250!”

He patted the seat affectionately. He ran his hands lovingly over the steering wheel.

“Next fall, when the new car is ready,” he said. “It will break my heart to part with her.”

“At that price,” I added.

“You have no sentiment,” accused Jim.

Editor’s Notes:

1. David Harum references a movie (and book) about a businessman and a horse he purchased. The story is known more today for the racist stereotype played by the black actor Stepin Fetchit. ↩︎
2. $600 in 1948 would be $8,480 in 2024 ↩︎

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, July 6, 1946.

“You look irked,” remarked Jimmie Frise.

“I am irked,” I admitted. “I’ve been irked all day.”

“The heat getting you?” suggested Jim.

“No, the traffic,” I stated. “Honestly, Jim, I don’t know what we’re coming to. Here we are, with hardly any new cars on the market yet. And the traffic is so bad it is hardly worth the nerve-strain to try and drive a car downtown.”

“I wonder where all the cars are coming from?” mused Jim. “Since there haven’t been any new cars manufactured for the past several years, there can’t actually be so many more cars on the streets than there were in 1944, for example.”

“It seems to me.” I submitted, “that there are TWICE as many cars on the streets as there were a year ago. What’s happened?”

“Maybe it’s just notion we’ve got,” supposed Jim.

“Notion nothing!” I protested. “I tell you, the downtown streets are well nigh impassable these days. Use your eyes, Jim! Not only are the cars jamming the streets in traffic, but you can’t find a place to park for a distance of a mile from the centre of the city.”

“All the parking lots are full,” admitted Jim.

“What is causing this increase in cars?” I insisted. “No new cars have been made for three years, of any account. Yet Toronto is jammed with more cars than there were in the heyday of car manufacturing, back in 1938 or 1939.”

“It’s very mysterious,” agreed Jim.

“It may be.” I presented, “that all those tens of thousands of war workers who came to the big city from towns and villages all over the province to work in war factories may still be lingering in the city. And they made enough money to buy cars – second-hand cars.”

“That might be it,” said Jim.

“Yet I don’t think,” I continued, “that the small towns are any less furnished with cars than they ever were.”

“Well, the cars have come from somewhere,” declared Jimmie, “and they aren’t new cars.”

“Not only are the cars more numerous,” I asserted, “but the driving is worse than I have ever known it to be.”

“I don’t think it’s the driving, Greg,” said Jim seriously. “It isn’t bad driving. It’s bad manners.”

“How do you mean?” I demanded.

“Driving isn’t bad,” explained Jim: “Driving is childishly simple. It’s the manners of people driving that is the trouble these days. Everybody trying to beat the other guy. Everybody trying to edge ahead of the other guy.

“And everybody,” I cried, “being impatient with the other guy! Drive down Yonge St. in the middle of the day and you can collect more dirty looks, more nasty cracks hurled at you out of the windows of other cars….”

“Don’t you hurl a few yourself?” asked Jim sweetly.

“Well, what can you do,” I retorted, “when some guy goes yappity, yappity out the car window at you!”

What It’s Coming To

“It isn’t bad driving,” summed up Jim, “it’s bad manners that’s the trouble these days. Driving in traffic has become a tough game, like hockey. You try to skate the other guy off. You try to give him the butt end. You try to take the puck off him by stealing the lead in traffic.”

“Nobody cares a hoot for anybody else,” I agreed. “If you want to park, you don’t stop to think that somebody may be behind you. You just jam on the brakes, whenever you see a parking space, and let the car behind look out for itself.”

“If you can gyp a guy out of a place to park,” added Jim, “why, that’s an extra feather in your cap.”

“Bad temper,” I put in, “irritation, grouchiness and eternal vigilance to cut the other man off if possible, seems to be the proper spirit in which to enter downtown traffic today.”

Jim reflected.

“Well, you see,” he mused, “a big city nowadays is no longer a manufacturing city. It is a trading city. In a manufacturing city, or a city in which the dominant business is manufacturing, you get people of a different character entirely from the people of a trading city. You get people accustomed to decent and orderly procedure. They spend their daily lives making things, by step-to-step process. They are people with patient, orderly minds.”

“I can see that,” I agreed.

“But in a big city that has become a trading city,” went on Jim, “a city full of agents, brokers, dealers – you get a people sharply interested in making a nickel or a dime. And the way the nickels and dimes are made by traders is by being awful quick, awful nimble.”

“I see that too,” I admitted. “It’s like brokers making a fraction of one per cent on a deal. So they try to turn over as many deals as possible, to make the fractions of one per cent add up.”

“Nickels and dimes,” repeated Jim. “That’s what they are after in the big cities where trading is the dominant activity. And that is why, in a big city, the driving manners are bad. You accustom a man all day to being quick and nimble at making a big pile of nickels and dimes, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., and the habit grows on him and takes hold of him. So that when he is driving home, after work, he can’t help but try all the little quick slick tricks, turns, dodges and jumps that he has been practising all day. Result: Traffic full of guys all trying to gain a few nickels and dimes over each other.”

“I think you’ve got something there, Jim,” I confessed. “But how the sam hill are we going to improve the driving manners of nearly a million people?”

“I don’t think it is our worry,” said Jim. “Things like that cure themselves. Our traffic is going to get denser and denser. The new cars will soon be coming out in quantity, adding to the jam. And the thicker the jam, the worse the manners will grow. Finally, in about two years, the keyed-up tempers of the driving public will snap. There will be duels all over the streets. Duels between cars. When somebody’s bad manners reach the zenith, in the midst of the ever-jamming traffic, another driver will simply smack into him. The custom will rapidly spread. All over the city, cars will be slamming into one another. Sideswiping each other. Chasing each other and driving each other into lamp posts. That’s the logical end to the present trend.”

“That’ll be kind of exciting,” I exclaimed.

“There are certain fundamental principles to human nature,” explained Jimmie, “and the first of them is, if you can get away with murder, why, you get away with it. No improvement in human behavior or human conduct, was ever brought about except as the result of a universal smashup. It isn’t enough for a few nice people to try to set an example to the mob. It isn’t enough for a few nice people, with ideals, to work out a system of good manners and try to impose it on the mass. We quit murdering each other, back about the year one, when there were so few of us left that we got scared and passed a law.”

“Well, you take New York,” I interrupted. I’ve been in all the big cities of the world Paris, London, Chicago and I say, without fear or favor, that the best driving manners in the world are in New York city.”

”That ain’t the way I heered it,” “scoffed Jim.

“No, because,” I cried, “for years New York’s driving manners were the world’s worst. They just about annihilated one another. There were more traffic fatalities in New York than anywhere else on earth. It worked out just the way you described, with those duels between cars. They got so bad that they just HAD to get good, in order to survive.”

Stacked in Solid

“The New York cops,” ventured Jim, “are pretty tough.”

“They are tough,” I explained, because they are watching the manners – not the driving – of the drivers. Just try any of the tricks that are tried on every street of Toronto every hour of the day and see what would happen to you in New York.”

“You certainly are irked, smiled Jim consolingly. “What happened to you today?”

“It was parking,” I muttered.

“What happened?” persisted Jim.

“Well,” I sighed heavily, “I must have spent 30 minutes driving round and round downtown, looking for a place to park. I went to the parking lot where I usually park and the cranky old autocrat who is the chief attendant waved me angrily off. The lot was packed absolutely solid with cars. At only 10 o’clock.”

“So?” helped Jim.

“So I drove around to another parking lot,” I continued, “and it was jam full. How they are going to unscramble those cars, I don’t know. They didn’t leave any aisles or avenues among the cars. Cars just stacked in solid.”

“That’s what gets me,” exclaimed Jimmie. “There don’t seem to be any rules governing those parking lots. So desperate are we in this city for parking space downtown that nobody has the nerve to suggest any rules to control the parking lots.”

“I bet,” I declared, “there is more damage done to the fenders and bodies of cars in Toronto on the parking lots than from any other cause whatsoever.”

“I agree,” said Jim. “But what can you expect, with those parking lot moguls being allowed to get away with murder?”

“I had my front left fender,” I submitted, “bashed all to pieces only last week in one of those indoor parking places. I thought I would play safe and not leave my car in one of those open-air madhouses. So I took it into an indoor parking place where an attendant takes the car from you at the door. At 5 o’clock they brought her down, with the left front fender all folded up.”

“But they didn’t get away with it?” demanded Jim.

“Sure they got away with it,” I cried. “They said, how did I know I didn’t bring it in that way? How did I know one of my children didn’t have it out the night before and bashed it all up? Did I go around the front, they asked me, when I got into the car in my own garage in the morning? Did I walk around to the front and look at my fenders?”

“Of course, you didn’t,” sympathized Jim.

“Nobody ever looks at their front bumper when they go and get their car out of their own garage in the morning.” I stated. “So they had me there. They asked me could I PROVE the damage had been done in their place.”

“Of course you couldn’t,” consoled Jim.

“They get away with murder,” I asserted. “They’ve got us where they want us. So desperate are we for a place to park, they can put anything they like over on us. I suppose we should be happy merely to get our cars back from them.”

There are too many of us,” said Jim sadly. “Too many motorists for the size of the city. I can see nothing but gloom ahead, in the traffic problem.”

“We can never expand the size of our streets,” I agreed, “fast enough to keep up with the number of people who will be buying cars. Toronto doubles its population every 20 years. Can you picture Toronto in another 20 years? Twice the number of cars in it there are now – AT LEAST!”

“It’s a dark prospect,” said Jim gloomily.

“Evils cure themselves,” I pointed out, “by destroying themselves. Downtown Toronto simply cannot by any stretch of the imagination, contain twice the traffic it contains today. Yet we know that in 20 years it will be twice as great.”

“So what?” asked Jim aghast.

“So it destroys itself,” I said complacently.

“Which?” inquired Jim. “The traffic or the downtown?”

“The downtown,” I submitted.

“I’d say the traffic,” plumped Jim.

“Why? I demanded.

“Because the traffic,” explained Jim, “is so much more easily destroyed than those big, fat buildings.”

“Well, something has to give,” I sighed.

“Can I drive home with you?” asked Jim. “I left my car at home this morning. Too much trouble to bring it downtown.”

“Ah, there’s the solution,” I cried. “It will become such a nuisance driving in downtown traffic that nobody will bring their cars.”

“What time are you leaving?” Jim asked.

“Fivish,” I replied.

And we returned to our chores.

Where’s My Car?

At 5, Jim and I sallied forth into the flood of home-goers and I guided him to the parking lot where I had left my car in the morning. It was a panjandrum. It had been packed so full, at 10 a.m., that I did not see how they were going to get my little open job in anywhere. But I was so glad they offered to try and I left it with them.

Now, at 10 past 5, the parking lot had the appearance of a solid sea of cars.

I paid my quarter to the chief attendant in the little shanty.

“Where do I find it?” I asked.

“How should I know?” replied the head man. “Go and look for it.”

Jim and I started along the aisles. I met another attendant, a red-haired, foolish-faced guy who seemed to be floating in a cloud.

“Where’s a little fawn-colored open job, with top down?” I asked him.

“Ha,” he cried, wheeling with alacrity. “I’ll get it. Been wanting to twirl that little baby all day!”

“No you don’t,” I cried, sprinting after him. “Not with these measly little aisles you’ve left in here!”

But he beat me to the open job and vaulted in behind the wheel.

“Wait a minute,” I warned. “Let me take her out…”

“We don’t allow the customers to move the cars,” he said, stepping on my starter and plunging the choke furiously.

“Come on, son, get out of there,” I commanded. “Don’t you move that car in here! Why, you haven’t left enough room for a wheelbarrow to turn.”

He ignored me and started to back, turning in the seat to watch behind with a gleeful, idiotic expression.

I reached in and turned off the ignition.

“Here!” I said, menacing. “Get out!”

And I opened the door. At which moment, another, older attendant, a loud-voiced, excited man, arrived and yelled:

“What’s the hold-up here?”

He explained, at the top of his lungs, that getting cars out of the ranks was a specialist’s job.

I was firm. I was adamant.

“Cars and contents,” I read to him from the wall of the little shanty, “left here at the owner’s risks. Okay I’m the owner. I’ll take the risk. Thank you.”

I backed. I was a little flushed. I was a little hot. And before I had so much as touched the accelerator, I went, with a dismal crunch, wham, bang into the solid bumper of a car in the next rank. I could feel my fender squishing.

There were shouts, there were imprecations, there were nit-wit chuckles from the red-headed kid.

“The motorists in this town,” bellowed the attendant in the red shirt, “are the worst lot of dopes anywhere in the world…”

He waved me out of my car. He took the wheel. He twisted, squirmed, inched, coiled and squeezed. He got my car out. He had made his 25 cents.

And I limped home with both front and back fenders squashed.

Editor’s Note: The word “panjandrum” does not make sense in this context, as it can refer to a self important person, but also had other meanings as a nonsense word. I see it used to describe a jumbled mess.

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, March 13, 1937.

“At last,” said Jimmie Frise, “at long last, I am about to buy a new car.”

“Jim,” I congratulated him, “it’s about time. What make are you choosing?”

“When I say a new car,” stated Jim. “I do not mean a new car in the full meaning of the word. It will be a used car.”

“Oh, not another second-hand car,” I protested.

“A used car,” repeated Jim. “There ought to be a better word than used car. Matured car. Ripe car. Car tuned in or broken in.”

“Broken in,” I assured him, “is the word. Will you never learn to profit by other people’s mistakes?”

“I do profit by other people’s mistakes,” said Jimmie, “Profit very neatly too. And the only mistake they make is turning in a car just when it is getting prime.”

“You’ve never yet bought a new car,” I accused him. “In eighteen years you have never had anything but used cars.”

“I would just as soon,” declared Jim, “pick a green banana off the tree and eat it as buy a new car. I like my cars to be run in and matured before I get them. Let somebody else pay for a lot of shine and a stiff engine. Let somebody else have the grief of seeing dents and scratches come on that investment. Let somebody else have the doubtful pleasure of driving it during its infancy at twenty-five miles an hour for the first 500 miles and thirty miles an hour for the next 500 miles.”

“If you have never had the pleasure of driving a beautiful smooth new car, Jim,” I informed him, “you are hardly in a position to judge that pleasure.”

“Let somebody else,” continued Jimmie, “have the fun of paying for all the adjustments and replacements that have to be made on a car before it is right.”

“New cars,” I advised, “are guaranteed for 90 days.”

“Yes,” said Jim, “and for the first 80 days you own a new car, you are conscious of it every time you are in it. You take special care of it. Give it oil. Treat it with consideration. There is blame little likely to happen the works of a new car in the first 90 days. But in about 180 days, you lose that first fine rapture and begin to put the car really to work. You have lost your silly pride in it. You step on it. You neglect its oil and grease a little. Whatever defects there were in it come to the surface. And our proud first owner has to pay for those corrections.”

“You make me feel,” I said, “as if I had been a fool for fifteen years.”

“There always have to be fools,” said Jim kindly. “But I have a line on a car, a swell sport model Allnox Eight.”

“What year?” I asked.

“A 1930,” said Jim. “But it has belonged to a man who has spent most of his time abroad and down in Florida. A rich guy, apparently. And it has spent most of its life in a garage. It has only gone 16,000 miles.”

“The price?” I asked.

“Prepare yourself,” said Jim triumphantly. “Get set. Take hold of something for support. Only $400.”

“There must be something wrong with it,” I said. “A new Allnox Eight is $2,200.”

With a Weasel Smile

“I Telephoned this guy last night,” said Jim excitedly. “It’s a private deal. No dealers, he said. He’s going on another trip abroad and he says he sees no reason for keeping this car laid up in his garage all the time. But he realizes it is a 1930 model and he is willing to let it go at a nominal figure, despite its wonderful condition.”

“What color is it?” I asked.

“Daffodil yellow,” cried Jimmie. “And he says it looks as if it had just come from the factory.”

“Are you going to see it?” I inquired.

“Am I going to see it?” shouted Jim. “Have I got the $400 in my mitt? Have I an appointment to see it at noon to-day?”

“How about …?” I began.

“Certainly,” said Jim. “I expect you to come with me.”

The neighborhood to which we drove to inspect the Allnox Eight was hardly the type of district a rich man would choose to live in. As a matter of fact, we were doubtful if we had the right house when we rang the bell because there were “roomer” signs in the windows. But this was all explained by Mr. Gitch when the landlady called him to the door.

Mr. Gitch was a small lean man who looked as if he were wearing somebody else’s clothes. He had a smooth tapered face that made him look like either a fox or a greyhound, and his eyes had that slitty, greyhound appearance of being able to see around to the back. Still, lots of men look rather funny by the time they are rich. You can’t get rich for nothing, I always say.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Gitch, softly, coming out on the porch, “I have the car around at the back. You will pardon my diggings here, but as I explained to you, I am seldom in Toronto; and whenever I am, I stay with this dear old soul who was a chum of my dear mother.”

He led us around the narrow side entrance and through a yard full of junk and boxes, to a lane. All the way through, he continued to explain in his soft, tender voice.

“After stopping at such places as the Ritz in London,” he smiled, “and the Ambassadoria in Rio and the Hotel London in Shanghai, you would imagine I would find it a little irksome to stop in a neighborhood like this.”

He smiled up at us from under his forehead and shook his hand delicately at the junk around. It seemed to me I had seen a weasel smile at me like that in the instant it had appeared and disappeared in the grass along a country fence.

“But this dear old body,” he chuckled, “would be simply heart broken if she heard I was in Toronto and had not stayed with her.”

He pushed through a hole in the back fence where a plank was off, and there, there, stood the Allnox Eight.

Daffodil yellow, sure enough and gleaming, flatly, indeed, as if she had come straight from the factory. Not a dent or scratch marred her satiny glowing surface.

“Why, she looks new,” cried Jim, walking around the beauty.

“Oh, I had her washed up,” admitted Mr. Gitch, frankly.

Inside, her upholstery was covered with dust covers of a snappy color and design, securely fastened down with tapes. It seemed to me that here and there, faint signs of age showed on her, such as the nickel of the lamps and the felt around the windows. I wordlessly placed my fingers on these slight omens, but Jimmie ignored my hints and walked around the car with increasing excitement.

“Nature is Completely Honest”

Mr. Gitch followed him with a curious softness of foot and voice that made me think of a cat.

“Hop in,” said Mr. Gitch. “We’ll take a spin.”

He drove. We rolled smoothly along the lane and into the streets full of bakers’ wagons and under-school-age children. Mr. Gitch raced the engine to show its power, since, obviously we could not let her out in these narrow streets.

“Listen to that,” cried Jim. “Has she ever got power!”

“At 16,000 miles,” said Mr. Gitch.” these American cars are on a par with European cars such as I am familiar with, I should say she was just nicely run in.”

He steered her around the block and back into the lane, where we dismounted.

“How about it?” asked Mr. Gitch and while I could not be sure, it seemed to me I saw his hands clutching and unclutching the way a hawk’s talons do.

“It’s a deal,” said Jim. “Can you drive her downtown to my office? We’ll drive down there and meet you and close the deal.”

“That,” said Mr. Gitch, “would suit me perfectly.”

“Meet me in half an hour then,” said Jim, “right in front of the office. I’ll be waiting there.”

We hastened out to my car and as I slammed the door, I cried:

“Jim, there’s something phoney about this whole thing. Call it off. Have the car examined by a mechanic.”

“What’s that?” demanded Jim, coming out of his trance.

“Something phoney,” I repeated. “I don’t like the man.”

“It’s the car we are buying,” retorted Jim. “Is there anything wrong with the car?

“Nature,” I declared, “is pretty honest in puting on the outside of all her packages a description of the contents. A crow is black and evil looking. A fox is sly and slinky. A deer is graceful and timid and shy-looking. If a man looks like a pig, you are generally pretty safe in assuming that he is a pig. ‘If a man looks like a fox, he is generally sly. If he…”

“What are you giving us?” snorted Jim.

“It’s a fact,” I assured him. “Nature is completely honest. She rarely fakes the outside of a bad package. Men are different. They can fake up the outside to look like a million dollars. That man reminded me of a fox, a weasel and hawk. I don’t like him.”

“Listen,” said Jim, “if we went around buying stuff only from the people we liked the look of, where would we be at?

“We would be a lot better off,” I stated.

“I guess,” smiled Jim, “you’re just a little jealous. As a new car buyer, you are just a little ribbed on seeing what kind of deals can be made if you look around. Oh, boy, can you see me sailing around in that yellow baby? That’s a sportsman’s car. Can you see me going to the races in it? Or out in the country, on a fishing trip?”

“Jim,” I said, “it’s phoney. It looks all right, it seemed to run all right. But that man is a weasel.”

“Haw, haw,” laughed Jim.

So we came to the office and parked my car and went and stood in front of the building to await Mr. Gitch. As we stood there waiting, our old friend Constable McGonigle came sauntering along and stopped to have chat with us. He belongs to the anglers’ association and is one of the most distinguished pike fishermen in the country despite his enormous size. Most good anglers are on the small side, but Constable McGonigle is a notable exception. We chatted merrily about the fast approaching season, Jimmie keeping a weather eye open for Mr. Gitch and Constable McGonigle keeping a weather eye open for sergeant; and suddenly Jimmie cried:

“Here he comes.”

Waiting For Delivery

Mr. Gitch in the magnificent yellow car was slowing down to come in to the open space where we were standing.

But suddenly he seemed to change his mind. He swung the wheel and stepped on the gas and with a roar of the engine leaped away and all we could see was the great yellow car vanishing along the street swaying in the traffic.

“What the dickens,” said Jim.

“What was all that?” asked Constable McGonigle.

So we explained to Constable McGonigle about the impending purchase and arranged to take him along with us on the first fishing trip in the new car which, in honor of the trout fly of that name, we agreed to call Yellow Sally. And he sauntered on, leaving Jimmie and me to wait for Mr. Gitch to come back around the block.

“Maybe,” said Jim, “he was just showing us how it handles.”

“Maybe,” I suggested, “he thought this space wasn’t big enough for him to park.”

We waited five minutes, ten minutes: no Mr. Gitch. We walked up to the end of the block both ways and looked. No Mr. Gitch. We walked right around the block and met Constable McGonigle again but he said he had noticed no yellow car.

At the end of an hour, we decided to go back to Mr. Gitch’s and see what had happened. A sad little old lady opened the door and we asked for Mr. Gitch.

“Mr. Who?” said she.

“Mr. Gitch,” we explained, “the gentleman we called for this morning about a big yellow car he was selling.”

“Oh, him,” said the landlady. “He only rented the room for an hour this morning. I never saw him before.”

“Ah,” said Jim.

“But,” said the lady, “maybe you could get him at a garage three streets over. I forget the name, but they have a big garage three streets over. I noticed that big yellow car backing out of it only yesterday, the same one he had in the lane this morning.”

Hastily Jim and I drove along to the garage which we found without trouble and we asked for the boss.

“A big yellow car?” he said. “Sure, we did the paint job on it just this week.”

“Paint job,” said Jim.

“One of the best paint jobs we ever did,” said the boss. “It set him back $70. But he insisted. We did a swell paint job and we trimmed up all the nickel and we sewed down a new set of dust covers on the seats and you wouldn’t know it from a new car hardly. That is, by the looks.”

“Was it in pretty good shape?” asked Jim.

“Pretty good shape?” asked the boss. “It was the worst old wreck I ever had in this place. He got it for $50 and he spent $70 on it. Can you imagine that?”

“Heh, heh,” laughed Jimmie.

“But he said in his business – he’s a salesman,” explained the garage boss, “he says appearances are everything.”

“Well, if he turns up,” said Jim, “tell him a couple of people were looking for him.”

“I doubt if he’ll be back,” said the boss. “He told me he was heading for California.”

So we drove back down town, and on the way, we stopped and bought a nice box of cigars for Constable McGonigle.

And Jim says it is always best to take a mechanic along with you when you got to look at a used car.

Editor’s Notes: “Allnox 8” is a made up car name, and is a play on words for cars of that era. The “8” would be an indication that it was an 8 cylinder engine, and “Allnox” is a joke on the term “Nonox” which meant “No Knocks”, an engine that would not “knock” thanks to additives to gasoline like lead. It would only be later that it was discovered that leaded gasoline was bad for the environment and for human health.

$400 in 1937 equals $7,400 in 2021. $2,200 would be $40,600. $50 would be $925.