The Lightning Conductor: The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car

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Williamson Charles Norris. The Lightning Conductor: The Strange Adventures of a Motor-Car

THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

JIMMY PAYNE TO CHAUNCEY RANDOLPH

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

FROM MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HER FATHER

FROM JACK WINSTON TO LORD LANE

MISS SYBIL BARROW TO HER SCHOOL FRIEND, MISS MINNIE HOBSON, OF EDGBASTON, BIRMINGHAM

MOLLY RANDOLPH TO HERSELF

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I have so many things to tell you I scarcely know where to begin. First let me announce that I am in for an adventure-a real flesh and blood adventure into which I plump without premeditation, but an adventure of so delightful a kind that I hope it may continue for many a day. I know you'll say at once, "That means Woman"; and you're right. But I won't go to the heart of the story at once; I'll begin at the beginning. First, though, a word as to yourself. I miss you enormously. It is a cruel stroke of fate that you should have been ordered to Davos after you had made all your plans to go with me on my new car to the Riviera. I still think that a trip on which you would have been in the open air all day was just as likely to check incipient chest trouble as the cold dryness of Davos; but no doubt you were right to do as the doctors told you. I shall look eagerly for letters from you with bulletins of your progress. As I can't have you with me, the next best thing will be to write to you often; besides, you said that you would like to have frequent reports of my doings in France, with "plenty of detail."

Well, the new car is a stunner. I haven't so far a fault to find with her. She takes most hills on the third, which is very good; for though we are only two up-Almond and I-I have luggage in the tonneau almost equal to the weight of another passenger. Between Dieppe and Paris she licked up the kilometres as a running flame licks up dry wood. She runs sweetly and with hardly any noise. The ignition seems to work perfectly; she carries water and petrol enough for 150 miles. I think at last in the Napier I have found the ideal car, and you know I have searched long enough. Almond timed her on the level bit at Achères, and it was at the rate of over forty-five miles an hour-not bad for a touring car.

.....

The man was the type one sees on advertisements of succulent sauces; you know, the smiling, full-bodied, red-faced, good-natured John Bull sort, who is depicted smacking his lips over a meal accompanied by The Sauce, which has produced the ecstasy. One glance at his shaven upper lip, his chin beard, and his keen but kindly eye, and I set him down as a comfortable manufacturer on a holiday-a Lancashire or Yorkshire man. The girl might be a daughter or young wife; I thought the former. A handsome creature, with big black eyes and a luscious, peach-like colour; style of hairdressing conscientiously copied from Queen Alexandra's; fine figure, well shown off by a too elaborate dress probably bought at the wrong shop in Paris; you felt she had been sent by doting parents to a boarding-school for "the daughters of noblemen and gentlemen"; no expense spared.

It was she who had echoed Aunt Mary; and when I turned she bridled. Yes, I think that's the only word for what she did. But it was the man who spoke.

.....