At one time or another each made a mile a minute, and a much higher rate of speed would have been maintained throughout had it not been necessary to identify certain towns in passing.  Nothing happened to any machine, but one or two required a little oiling, and several were abandoned by the roadside because their occupants had stubbornly determined to go no farther.  One man who confessed that a set-screw in his goggles worked loose was expelled from the club as too matter-of-fact to be eligible for membership, and the maker of the machine he used sent four-page communications to each trade paper explaining that the loosening of the set-screw was due to no defect in the machine, but was entirely the fault of the driver, who jarred the screw loose by winking his eye.

Each machine surmounted Nelson Hill like a bird,—­or would have, if it had not been for the machine in front.  There were those who would have made the hill in forty-two seconds if they had not wasted valuable time in pushing.  The pitiful feat of the man who crawled up at the rate of seventeen miles an hour was quite discounted by the stories of those who would have made it in half that time if their power had not oozed out in the first hundred yards.

Then there was mud along the route, deep mud.  According to accounts, which were eloquently verified by the silence of all who listened, the mud was hub deep everywhere, and in places the machines were quite out of sight, burrowing like moles.  Some took to the tow-path along the canal, others to trolley lines and telegraph wires.

Each man ran his own machine without the slightest expert assistance; the men in over-alls with kits of tools lurking along the roadside were modern brigands seeking opportunities for hold-ups; now and then they would spring out upon an unoffending machine, knock it into a state of insensibility, and abuse it most unmercifully.  A number of machines were shadowed throughout the run by these rascals, and several did not escape their clutches, but perished miserably.  In one instance a babe in arms drove one machine sixty-two miles an hour with one hand, the other being occupied with a nursing-bottle.

There were one hundred and fifty-six dress-suit cases on the run, but only one was used, and that to sit on during high tide in Herkimer County, where the mud was deepest.

It would be quite superfluous to relate additional experience tales, but enough has been told to illustrate the necessity of a narrative discount notice in all places where the clans gather.  All men are liars, but some intend to lie,—­to their credit, be it said, chauffeurs are not among the latter.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN ANARCHISM “BULLETINS FROM THE CHAMBER OF DEATH”

During these days the President was dying in Buffalo, though the country did not know it until Friday.