Chapter VI: Part 6

The speed continually increased until it reached a rate of about fifteen miles an hour. There was no traffic on the road, and Templeton was on the point of slowing down, preparatory to stopping and turning, when, rounding a slight bend, he came to a cross-road just as the head of the civic procession arrived at the corner. The town sergeant, bearing the mace, led the way; behind him came Noakes, in his mayoral robes, followed immediately by the councillors, the senior of whom carried a magnum bottle of cider.

Templeton caught sight of the procession just in time to avoid a collision. Forgetting in the excitement of the moment the necessity of slowing down before bringing the reverse into action, he swung round on the pivot. The effect was amazing. The machine, instead of running in the opposite direction, plunged forward with zigzag rushes, charging into the procession. Templeton lost his head, forgot his brakes, and made frantic efforts to stop the engine, but something had stuck. Eves, between alarm and amusement at the stampede of the civic dignitaries, forgot to keep his eye on the brushes, which had dropped owing to the change of gear, and now began to race. Unlike the highway, the cross-road was deep in mud, and as the machine ran from side to side, dashing first into one hedge, then the other, the brushes flung up mud in all directions. Eves and O'Reilly were splashed from head to foot, but the full effect of this outrageous behaviour of the road-sweeper was felt by Noakes and the councillors immediately behind him. They had sought safety by backing into the hedge opposite to that at which the machine appeared to be charging as it approached them. Unhappily for them, it suddenly altered its direction, passed within a few inches of their shrinking forms, and covered them with a deluge of liquid mud. There was a crash as the bottle of cider fell and splintered into fragments, and loud cries of alarm and objurgation from the bespattered victims.

The incident occupied barely half a minute. Templeton recovered himself, stopped his engine, rammed on his brakes, and, least bemired of all the actors, got down to make his apologies. Eves and O'Reilly by this time were shaking with laughter. Noakes, seeing that the machine had come to a stop, approached the contrite driver with uplifted fist, too irate even to speak. He had tried to rub the splashes of mud from his cheeks, with the result that he had only spread them.

"I am really very sorry, Mr. Noakes," said Templeton. "I was trying a new invention, and I can't say how much I regret----"

"Od rabbit you and your inventions," roared Noakes. "You did it o' purpose, you viper. I'll have you up, I will, for creating a nuisance----"

"Driving to the danger of the public, be jowned to 'em," put in a councillor who had suffered scarcely less than the mayor.

"Ay, the danger of the public and bodily injury to the mayor," cried Noakes. "No option of a fine, neither; you'll go to jail, sure as my name be Philemon Noakes."

"Come, come, now," said O'Reilly, thinking it time to intervene. "Sure, any one could see it was nothing but an accident that might have happened to the Lord Mayor of Dublin himself. You gentlemen have got splashed; faith, so have I. Look at me! The right way to look at it is that we're all suffering in a good cause--martyrs of science, and I wouldn't say but we've got off lightly."

"There's summat in that, Neighbour Noakes," said a councillor who, being at the rear of the procession, had not come within range of the rotating brushes. "Ay, what I say is, these young fellers what have served their country want to be encouraged, and if so be a little mud flies--why, there 'tis; it will brush off, and 'tis all one."

"There'll be no 'nointing to-day, that's certain," said another. "Seems to me we'd best all go home along before they get wind of it in the meadow up yonder. None of us wants a crowd ramping round and admiring of our muddy faces. The old stone won't hurt for want of its drop o' liquor for once."

"That's true," added a third. "And as for speeches--well, speaking as man to man, speeches are a weariness of the flesh to me. Let's go home along, neighbours, and drink a drop o' something hot, with our toes on the fire."

The suggestion won favour with the majority, and Noakes, irritably conscious of his unseemly appearance, allowed himself to be escorted towards the town. A few of the more curious waited to see what further antics the road-sweeper performed. But they were disappointed. A brief examination of the mechanism revealed to Templeton the cause of his failure. He made certain adjustments which enabled him to drive the machine home at a moderate pace, and without further experiments with the reversible steering. Eves and O'Reilly followed, prudently, in the cab.

"My hat, what a rag!" said Eves to his companion on the way. "But I'm afraid old Bob has come a cropper, poor old boy! It's not the first time; but I'll say this for him, he always comes up smiling."

"And he'll smile to a good tune if I don't be mistaken," said O'Reilly. "He's got hold of a good idea, and with the help of an engineer friend of mine he'll make something of it. I'll see to that."

The next week's local paper contained a copious but by no means a wholly accurate account of the incident. The deplorable appearance of the mayor was described, however, with excessive particularity. Unkindest cut of all, the editor pointed the moral:

"We have already more than once drawn the attention of the mayor and corporation to the disgracefully muddy state of our roads in winter-time. Now that our civic worthies have suffered in their own persons, and the town has been deprived for the first time in a hundred and forty years of its ancient and time-honoured ceremony, perhaps something will be done, or are we to wait until the present mayor's tenure of office has expired?"

A few months later Eves received from Templeton a long letter which gave him a good deal of pleasure. Templeton related that his invention, tested under more favourable conditions, had more than fulfilled his hopes. O'Reilly was enthusiastic about it, and had arranged to set up a small factory for him. But almost as agreeable was the news about the Mayor of Pudlington:

"Noakes was never popular," Templeton wrote, "and the sorry figure he cut in certain episodes we know of brought him into ridicule, which is always fatal. It began to be whispered, too, that there was something shady in his transactions over contracts and canteens, and what not. Anyhow, one fine day he disappeared, and I hear that there are warrants out against him. I'm not vindictive, but I can't say I shall be sorry if he is caught."

"Just like old Bob," said Eves to himself. He sat down to dash off a reply:

"I'm jolly glad, old man. 'There is a tide,' etc. (Shakespeare). I always said you'd make your fortune, though I must own I never thought it would be through a mad road-sweeper. I'm going to be demobbed after all, so I'll take on your advertising stunt as soon as you like. As to Noakes, I don't care whether he's caught or not. He was always a glorious rag, and I rather fancy he more or less inspired some of your bright ideas."

THE END

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*HERBERT STRANG*

*COMPLETE LIST OF STORIES*

ADVENTURES OF DICK TREVANION, THE ADVENTURES OF HARRY ROCHESTER, THE A GENTLEMAN AT ARMS A HERO OF LIEGE AIR PATROL, THE AIR SCOUT, THE BARCLAY OF THE GUIDES BLUE RAIDER, THE BOYS OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE BRIGHT IDEAS BROWN OF MOUKDEN BURTON OF THE FLYING CORPS CARRY ON CRUISE OF THE GYRO-CAR, THE FIGHTING WITH FRENCH FLYING BOAT, THE FRANK FORESTER HUMPHREY BOLD JACK HARDY KING OF THE AIR KOBO LONG TRAIL, THE LORD OF THE SEAS MOTOR SCOUT, THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, THE ONE OF CLIVE'S HEROES PALM TREE ISLAND ROB THE RANGER ROUND THE WORLD IN SEVEN DAYS SAMBA SETTLERS AND SCOUTS SULTAN JIM SWIFT AND SURE THROUGH THE ENEMY'S LINES TOM BURNABY TOM WILLOUGHBY'S SCOUTS WITH DRAKE ON THE SPANISH MAIN WITH HAIG ON THE SOMME