the tyres been pneumatic instead of solid. We drove on quite merrily, and after the car had reached Scotland and had been driven to Stirling, I got a cycle repairer to clean out the scar and fill it up with rubber. In doing so he probed on to something, and after working like a dentist at a stiff stump, he punched out a flint as big as a thumb-nail and more than an eighth of an inch thick, which was buried in the tyre, completely out of sight.
For the sake of any readers of Badminton who have never tested the fascinations of autocarism, I should like to recount some incidents which show that when the motorist's blood is up he will go though hardships equal to any that the most ardent votary of any sport will face, and these recitals give proof how motoring stimulates energy and invention.
Mr. Graham White gave an illustration on the 1,000 mile tour of what an autocarist will do rather than give in. I suppose it is the first instance of a human tiller being used for steering. On this run he on one occasion got down for a moment, asking his friend to steer, which the friend did by promptly running the car off the road and breaking the steering gear, putting the car in about the most hopeless disablement conceivable. There were many miles still to be traversed, and Mr. White accomplished the run by standing on the front of the car, and working the steering directly with his foot, thus bringing her through the crowded streets of Newcastle. I cannot tell you how he did it, but that he did it is certain.
Another case was that of Mr. Rolls driving a car from Paris in 1900. The story tells of the following mishaps: joints of waterpipe gone, bad junction to be replaced, bad cut in tyre of off front wheel; chain loose, burst of back tit, mackintosh loose and wound up in shreds on pump, leaking cylinder, whole upper ends of cylinders red-hot, pump jammed, leaks in radiator pipes, ignition tube burst twice, oil on the brakes, another tyre burst.
These were surely trials enough to break the bark of resolution, but what the Anglo-Saxon and the Gael will do and dare can be appreciated when I mention that all these troubles
