Mundane Musings

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 246, 7 January 1928, Page 16

Mundane Musings

The Motor-Car Lure (Written for THE SUN.) I want a motor-car. Ido want a motor-car, ever so badly. Whether I shall ever buy a motor-car or not rests entirely in the lap of the gods, like the goddesses, or perhaps more particularly in the state of the overdraft at my bankers. Motor showrooms are places with an awful allure for me. It stands to reason that they must be, when one sees the huge amount of determination which large, muscular he-men have to use to steer clear of them. As for a woman, an ordinary every-day pocketedition sort of woman, who dreams of a darling little two-seater every night, and takes a rotten old tramcar every morning—well, there’s just no hope for her at all!

Possibly you’ll meet her next week or the week after scorching along in a brand-new, spring-geared, baloontyred, four-braked, credit-hired roadster, wondering how the dickens Aunt Dolly is going to be paid her board money next week or the week after, and if she can do without any clothes at all —any new ones, that is—for a couple of dozen months or so. And she’ll stop, in her most gracious way, and magnanimously offer you a lift, and explain lucidly to you that she is saving enormously on tram fares, and not costing the poor dear office nearly as much for taxis when it’s late and dark and “all alonely” at night. Then you'll be tactful and nice—if you hope to get a lift in the new little bus, and you won’t remind her that there will be petrol and oil bills and garage fees, and that she’ll probably smash the darned thing up anyhow, and bust her reputation along with it, and that she’s holding up a string of traffic, and is on the wrong side of the road, and that there’s a gloomy-looking policeman bearing down on her with “a first offence” look in his weather eye. No, you won’t tell her any of those things. You’ll just “hop in, old thing,” and say “Oh, boy, isn’t she just a bobby dazzler.” THOSE TRIAL RUNS

But you won’t meet this child in that car for a week or more yet. I must have some more of those wonderful trial runs all round the pretty old countryside! I can never resist an invitation to “come for a trial run, madam!” Especially when it’s handed out by some salesman who has a manner and appearance that would do credit to the eldest son of any old peer. I like to listen to them, too —the funny things, with their flow of honeyed words, and their stream of technicalities, that flows from them like a powerful exhaust.

The only trouble is that I have nearly exhausted all the motor-car places in town. What’ll Ido then? I've been trying to buy a car for four years, and even if I do eventually buy a ramshackle, tumble-down old Tin Liz, I’m determined to get all the fun I can out of the business of buying in the meantime. My methods have become almost Oriental in their subtlety, their slowness, their loquacity. I have

attended every motor show that’s happened during- those four years, and I’m still bargaining and “trial-running.” Ganymedes descends upon me annually from the dressed-up Stutzy-Ford stand of some Olympia. “Now, madame, this charming little coupe, with all the latest equipment—it would suit madame's ravishing complexion wonderfully, with its orange and black Duco paint. And it has overhead valves, four-wheel brakes, central gears, and does sixty, if not seventy, miles to the gallon; essentially a lady’s car.” “M-m-m-,” I murmur softly. “I suppose you mean it's fool-proof?” Ganymedes smiles his most disarming smile. “Ah, no, madame, ah no!—not that, but—er, just notice that beautiful upholstery, the taste and luxury of it. And the convenience of the driving arrangements. The pedals are accessible to the shortest reach; everything is to hand.” “Except money!” is a cry from my envious heart, that aches to possess the tantalising thing. But even that does not nonpluss the showman. 3?erhaps, before he became a motor-car salesman-Adonis, he too felt the pinch °\£ I ° vorty ' He speaks confidentially. We could arrange for madame, on the hire-purchase system. I myself could take madame for a trial run.” Of course, I go trial-running again! When he is so gracious and condescending to me, how could it be otherwise? I have wanted to go to the tiptoppest top of the nearest mountain for ages. Perhaps he'll take me. Wo*ld that be too far to ask him to drive the new little darling? “But no—wherever madame wishes,” the voice pf the charmer replies. Th© gods indeed love me, but I wish they d hurry up and send me a motorcar all my own, then I’d take people trial-running or whatever they liked to call it—miles along some hard, sandy beach we’d fly, with the roar of the engine doing its darndest to drown the roar of the waves, and with our hats off and the wind tearing through our hair a fig for the set of our wave, even if it was 15s “wave and shampoo.” Down country roads to gather buttercups and daisies; away to a river to swim . . . back to a beach . . . sauntering and whirling over miles, with no horrid little meter ticking up sixpences to bother us. Ido want that motor-car! Blow!—it’s nearly twelve o’clock. I’ve missed my last tram again. Oh, well, it’s not far to walk —perhaps someone’s going home my way, too, so that won’t be so bad. Gee, what a wonderful night—just made for walking. Who’d be tied* up to a petrolly-smelling motor, when they can saunter up through the park and sit in the moonlight, holding hands, smoking, and watching the bright skysigns winking out one by one, and leaving the stars alone in their brightness. Who cares for a car while the world is young? Me! HUIA MASE.