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This whole question of paying for services in connection with automobiling is as interesting as it is new. The people are not adjusted to the strange vehicle. A man with a white elephant could probably travel from New York to San Francisco without disbursing a penny for the keeping of his animal. Farmers and even liverymen would keep and feed it on the way without charge. It is a good deal so with an automobile; it is still sufficiently a curiosity to command respect and attention. The farmer is glad to have it stop in front of his door or put up in his shed; he will supply it with oil and water. The blacksmith would rather have it stop at his shop for repair than at his rival's—it gives him a little notoriety, something to talk about. So it is with the liveryman at night; he is, as a rule, only too glad to have the novelty under his roof, and takes pride in showing it to the visiting townsfolk. They do not know what to charge, and therefore charge nothing. It is often with difficulty anything can be forced upon them; they are quite averse to accepting gratuities; meanwhile, the farmer, whose horse and cart have taken up far less room and caused far less trouble, pays the fixed charge.
These conditions prevail only in localities where automobiles are seen infrequently. Along the highways where they travel frequently all is quite changed; many a stable will not house them at any price, and those that will, charge goodly sums for the service.
It is one thing to own an automobile, another thing to operate it. It is one thing to sit imposingly at the steering-wheel until something goes wrong, and quite another thing to repair and go on.
There are chauffeurs and chauffeurs—the latter wear the paraphernalia and are photographed, while the former are working under the machines. You can tell the difference by the goggles. The sham chauffeur sits in front and turns the wheel, the real sits behind and takes things as they come; the former wears the goggles, the latter finds sufficient protection in the smut on the end of his nose.
There is every excuse for relying helplessly on an expert mechanic if you have no mechanical ingenuity, or are averse to getting dirty and grimy; but that is not automobiling; it is being run about in a huge perambulator.
The real chauffeur knows every moment by the sound and "feel" of his machine exactly what it is doing, the amount of gasoline it is taking, whether the lubrication is perfect, the character and heat of the spark, the condition of almost every screw, nut, and bolt, and he runs his machine accordingly; at the first indication of anything wrong he stops and takes the stitch in time that saves ninety and nine later. The sham chauffeur sits at the wheel, and in the security of ignorance runs gayly along until his machine is a wreck; he may have hours, days, or even weeks of blind enjoyment, but the end is inevitable, and the repairs costly; then he blames every one but himself—blames the maker for not making a machine that may be operated by inexperience forever, blames the men in his stable for what reason he knows not, blames the roads, the country, everything and everybody—but himself.
It is amusing to hear the sham chauffeur talk. When things go well, he does it; when they go wrong, it is the fault of some one else; if he makes a successful run, the mechanic with him is a nonentity; if he breaks down, the mechanic is his only resource. It is more interesting to hear the mechanic—the real chauffeur—talk when he is flat on his back making good the mistakes of his master, but his conversation could not be printed verbatim et literatim—it is explosive and without a muffler.
The man who cannot run his machine a thousand miles without expert assistance should make no pretense to being a chauffeur, for he is not one. The chauffeur may use mechanics whenever he can find them; but if he can't find them, he gets along just as well; and when he does use them it is not for information and advice, but to do just the things he wants done and no more. The skilled enthusiast would not think of letting even an expert from the factory do anything to his machine, unless he stood over him and watched every movement; as soon would a lover of horses permit his hostlers to dope his favorite mount.
CHAPTER TWO THE MACHINE USED MAKING READY TO START
The machine was just an ordinary twelve hundred dollar single-cylinder American machine, with neither improvements nor attachments to especially strengthen it for a long tour; and it had seen constant service since January without any return to the shop for repairs.
It was rated eight and one-half horse-power; but, as every one knows, American machines are overrated as a rule, while foreign machines are greatly underrated. A twelve horse-power American machine may mean not more than eight or ten; a twelve horse-power French machine, with its four cylinders, means not less than sixteen.
The foreign manufacturer appreciates the advantage of having it said that his eight horse-power machine will run faster and climb better than the eight horsepower machine of a rival maker; hence the tendency to increase the power without changing the nominal rating. The American manufacturer caters to the demand of his customers for machines of high power by advancing the nominal rating quite beyond the power actually developed.
But already things are changing here, and makers show a disposition to rate their machines low, for the sake of astonishing in performance. A man dislikes to admit his machine is rated at forty horse-power and to acknowledge defeat by a machine rated at twenty, when the truth is that each machine is probably about thirty.
The tendency at the present moment is decidedly towards the French type—two or four cylinders placed in front.
In the construction of racing-cars and high-speed machines for such roads as they have on the other side, we have much to learn from the French—and we have been slow in learning it. The conceit of the American mechanic amounts often to blind stubbornness, but the ease with which the foreign machines have passed the American in all races on smooth roads has opened the eyes of our builders; the danger just now is that they will go to the other extreme and copy too blindly.
In the hands of experts, the foreign racing-cars are the most perfect road locomotives yet devised; for touring over American roads in the hands of the amateur they are worse than useless; and even experts have great difficulty in running week in and week out without serious breaks and delays. To use a slang phrase, "They will not stand the racket." However "stunning" they look on asphalt and macadam with their low, rakish bodies, resplendent in red and polished brass, on country roads they are very frequently failures. A thirty horse-power foreign machine costing ten or twelve thousand dollars, accompanied by one or more expert mechanics, may make a brilliant showing for a week or so; but when the time is up, the ordinary, cheap, country-looking, American automobile will be found a close second at the finish; not that it is a finer piece of machinery, for it is not; but it has been developed under the adverse conditions prevailing in this country and is built to surmount them. The maker in this country who runs his machine one hundred miles from his factory, would find fewer difficulties between Paris and Berlin.
The temptation is great to purchase a foreign machine on sight; resist the temptation until you have ridden in it over a hundred miles of sandy, clayey, and hilly American roads; you may then defer the purchase indefinitely, unless you expect to carry along a man.
Machine for machine, regardless of price, the comparison is debatable; but price for price, there is no comparison whatsoever; in fact, there is no inexpensive imported machine