Текст книги "Little Golden America"

Автор книги: Евгений Петров

Соавторы: Илья Ильф
сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

"Gentlemen," asked Mr. Adams, "is there a ringing in your ears? Confess!"

We listened. There actually was a ringing in our ears. Mr. Adams was greatly elated.

"This is rarefied air," said he. "Don't let it astonish you. Unnoticeably, we have climbed to considerable height. But I think this is the last mountain pass now."

As usual, Mr. Adams was right.

Soon we began to descend, down the beautiful winding road, to a new desert. We saw it from a great height. It did not at all look like those deserts to which we had become accustomed in the course of the week. Wrapped in a light rising mist, it disclosed itself gradually with every new winding of the road. We drove carefully lower and lower. After a considerable interruption, life began again: a ploughed field, irrigation canals, green winter crops, long brown vineyards disappearing in the misty horizon, and oil derricks of the city of Bakersfield. It was December. Palms appeared, trees, girls in skirts and girls in trousers. The girls in the long and wide trousers of thin wool, and with a light kerchief around their necks, were a sign that Hollywood was near by. This is the motion-picture style—to go around in trousers. They are comfortable and roomy.

This part of California is an irrigated desert. If California were to be deprived of irrigation for one week, it would return to what it had always been: a desert. If flowers are not watered here for one day, they perish.

"California," cried Mr. Adams suddenly, "is a remarkable state. As a matter of principle, there is never any rain here. Yes, yes,, precisely as a matter of principle. You will simply insult a Californian if you tell him that rain is possible here. If on the day of your arrival it rains anyway, the Californian will be very angry, will shrug his shoulders, and say: 'This is something incomprehensible. I have been living here for twenty years. One of my wives died here and another fell ill. Here my children grew up and graduated from high school. This is the first time I have seen rain.'"

The Bakersfield oil well derricks, in distinction from those of Oklahoma, which were of metal, were made of wood. These are the older oil wells. And again, side by side with the derricks, we saw pathetic hovels, Such is the law of American life: the wealthier the place, the more millions are pumped out or dug out of the earth, the poorer and shabbier are the hovels of the people who dig out or pump out those millions.

As a matter of fact, the oil is not pumped only by large companies. It is pumped, so to speak, individually as well, by local residents, the owners of the little houses and the little Fords. They make an opening side by side with the oil-bearing lands of the company, right in their own small garden, in their own garage, in their own parlour, and pump a few gallons a day for themselves. This method of mining Americans call "wild-catting."

Only its palms distinguished Bakersfield from the hundreds of other Gallups we had seen. But this is an appreciable difference, for a Gallup with palms is considerably more pleasing than a Gallup without palms.

Trade and advertising assume a much more lively character here than in the desert. After endless and monotonous "Drink Coca-Cola" signs, we found here a certain New York flair in the advertiser's concern about the consumer. The owner of a small petrol station on the outskirts of Bakersfield hung over his establishment a funny man made up of empty automobile oil cans. The man rocked in the wind, clattered and groaned like a lonely ghost forgotten by all. And in his groans one could clearly hear: "Buy only Pennsylvania Oil. This oil is from the Quaker State. The Quakers are good people. Their oil cannot be bad."

And farther on, over an automobile repair station (a "service station") hung such a fancy placard that Mr. Adams, who was the first to notice it, loudly clapped his hands and shouted: "Becky! Stop here!"

"Yes, gentlemen!" he said to us. " You must think deeply about this placard if you want to understand the American soul."

On the placard was written:

Automobile service. Here you will always be met with a friendly laugh.

That is right. American laughter, generally good, loud, and lively laughter, occasionally does irritate.

Let us suppose that two Americans meet.

FIRST AMERICAN (smiling): ...

SECOND AMERICAN (showing part of his teeth): .. .

FIRST AMERICAN : How are you? (Laughs.)

SECOND AMERICAN : Very well, thank you!(Shows all of his thirty-two teeth, among which are three gold ones.) And how are you?

FIRST AMERICAN : Very well! Fine! (Laughs loudly.) How is business ?

SECOND AMERICAN : Good! (Laughs uproariously.) And yours ?

FIRST AMERICAN: Excellent! (Laughs wildly.) Well, good-bye, regards to your wife!

SECOND AMERICAN: Thank you! Ha, ha, ha! Regards to yours! (Emitting an entire waterfall of laughter, he slaps FIRST AMERICAN on the shoulder with all his might.) Good-bye!

FIRST AMERICAN (shaking with laughter slaps SECOND AMERICAN on the shoulder): Good-bye! (Each goes to his automobile, and they part, driving off in different directions at a terrific speed.)

There is a possible variant to that conversation, which, as a matter of fact, scarcely alters the case:

FIRST AMERICAN (smiling): How's business?

SECOND AMERICAN (laughing): Very bad, very bad. How's yours?

FIRST AMERICAN (laughing uproariously): Disgusting! I lost my job yesterday.

SECOND AMERICAN (bursting with laughter): How's your wife? FIRST AMERICAN: She's quite dangerously ill. (He tries to make a serious face, but vigorous, joyous laughter breaks out again.)

Yesterday we called ... ha, ha, ha ... Yesterday ... oh, I can't bear it. . . yesterday, we called the doctor.

SECOND AMERICAN : Really? Is that so? Oh, what a pity! I'm sorry for you, my friend. (And laughing uproariously, slaps FIRST AMERICAN on the back.)

Americans laugh and never stop showing their teeth, not because some-thing humorous has happened to them, but because laughter is their style. America is a land that loves explicitness in all its affairs and ideas.

It is better to be rich than to be poor. So, instead of wasting time on thinking of the causes of poverty and eliminating them, the American tries in every possible way to acquire a million dollars.

A billion is better than a million. So, instead of retiring from business and enjoying the million of his fondest dreams, he sits in his office in his shirt sleeves and sweats at making a billion.

Sport is better for health than reading books. So, he devotes all his free time to sport.

It is necessary at times to be entertained, to rest from work. So he goes to the cinema or to the burlesque, where he is not compelled to think about the slightest problems of life, because that would prevent him from resting completely.

It is better to laugh than to weep. So, he laughs. No doubt, in the past he forced himself to laugh, just as he forced himself to sleep with windows open, to indulge in gymnastics, and to brush his teeth. Subsequently these things became daily habits. And now laughter rattles in his throat, irrespective of his circumstances or his wishes. If you see a laughing American, it does not mean that something strikes him as comical. He laughs only because an American must laugh. Let the Mexicans, Slavs, Jews, and Negroes whine and grieve.

We drove out to an excellent four-lane road, a highway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and again found ourselves in the automobile whirl from which we had been unaccustomed in the desert. The highway, divided by white lines, was black, the colour of pitch, shining greasily from the constant drip of oil. Advancing upon us, their windshields gleaming, automobiles whisked by in the opposite direction.' From the distance they seemed very high, for the road reflected their wheels. Buicks, Fords, Chryslers, Packards, raced ahead. Countless machines roared and snorted like tomcats. There is constant movement on American highways.

California is notorious for its automobile accidents. More and more frequently along the road we came across bill-boards pleading with chauffeurs to drive more carefully. They were beautifully executed, laconic and horrifying. A huge policeman holding the corpse of a little girl in his left arm, pointed his right hand at us. Under it was the inscription : " Stop these murders!" On another bill-board was portrayed a distraught man who had lost his reason, a child's corpse in his arms, and the inscription read: "What have I done!"

"No, Becky, I don't want anyone to greet us with friendly laughter," said Mr. Adams. "Do you want our mutilated car greeted with friendly laughter? Becky, you must keep to forty miles!"

Mrs. Adams made an attempt to argue, but the bill-boards made such a strong impression on us that we seconded Mr. Adams, and our adventurous driver submitted.

"Becky!" exclaimed Mr. Adams. "Do you really want to hold my heavy corpse in your arms and shout for all of California to hear, 'What have I done!'"

Then Mr. Adams buried his nose in a map and, concentrating on his grumbling, began to draw over it straight and crooked lines.

Finally he said, "We must drive into Sequoia Park. It is not far from here. At the town of Delano we shall have to turn to the right. It's a bit out of our way—about sixty miles, no more. We'll drive over for five minutes, return to the highway and then drive straight to San Francisco. No, don't say anything to me. It would simply be foolish not to drive into Sequoia Park. We should be real travellers!"

Now we are very grateful to Mr. Adams for insisting upon our going to Sequoia Park. But then we were too fatigued by the journey through the desert, too full of impressions, and too eager to reach San Francisco to agree at once to taking this step.

We held a quick council, at which Mr. Adams, always most circumspect, behaved like Suvorov.

It was decided to drive over to Sequoia Park for five minutes.

By the time we reached Delano two hours had passed. On the right appeared mountains. We turned toward them. These were the Sierra Nevadas, a mountain chain which stretches for five hundred miles between the Colorado Plateau and the California Valley.

Again before us were stern mountain vistas, again Mrs. Adams, raising her arms in exaltation, would put her head out of the window and cry "Look, look!" and we pleaded with her to put her hands back on the steering wheel and keep her eyes on the road, swearing to her that at dinner-time we would describe all the beauties to her in the most artistic manner. But it was too long to wait until dinner-time.

The rise on the scenic highway began among small cliffs, streams, and a thick coniferous growth which gleamed in the sun. What joy it was with every turn to rise higher and higher into the blue sky, to the point where on a height beyond our reach we could see the snow-clad peaks. Below, on almost sheer green inclines could be seen narrow strips of the roads we had passed an hour before, while the streams were no longer visible. Soon even the sun appeared below us.

"Where are the sequoias?" we kept asking monotonously.

"Don't talk to me about sequoias!" Mr. Adams replied quite distractedly. "The sequoias will soon be here."

"But it's already dinner-time," remarked Mrs. Adams, looking at her watch and at the same time making a dizzying turn.

"Now, Becky, you must not talk that way; it is already dinner-time! It hurts me to hear you talk like that!"

We thought that we would drive in for five minutes, but here four hours had already elapsed.

Then suddenly appeared an entrance booth of the national park, and we, sighing with relief, surrendered a dollar apiece. However, another hour of travel passed before we saw the first sequoia.

"Look, look!" cried Mrs. Adams, stopping the automobile.

At first we could not notice anything. On a level with the road immovably stood an entire forest of coniferous tree-tops, the trunks of which grew out of the sheer inclines below our level. But one tree-top mixed in with them was somehow distinct from the others. Looking closely, we noticed that the needles of this conifer were darker and somewhat differently shaped. Cautiously we looked down. While the trunks of the other trees ended quite close, growing crookedly into the inclines, this trunk, as thick as a tower, plunged straight into the abyss, and it was impossible to discover where it began.

"Well, what do you say to this?" Mr. Adams crowed. "Didn't you ask me where the sequoias were?"

"Look, look!" Mrs. Adams cried again.

But this time we had to look not down, but up. Right beside us, out of the earth, rose the trunk of another gigantic tree. It is not at all surprising that we did not notice it at once. It was too great, too abnormal among the customary trunks of firs and pines that surrounded it, for an eye, trained to the natural difference between large and small, to be able at once to notice this phenomenon.

We drove slowly from tree to tree. We soon learned that the first two before which we stopped in astonishment were the very smallest of the species. Now we were driving through an ancient darkened forest, a fantastic forest, where the word "man" ceases to sound proudly and only one word sounds proudly, the word—"tree." Sequoias, which according to the restrained expression of the scientists, belong to "the family of the conifers," grow alongside of ordinary firs and pines, and astonish man as much as if he were suddenly to see among chickens and pigs a living pterodactyl or a mammoth.

The very largest tree is four thousand years old. It is called "General Sherman." Americans are intensely pragmatic. Near "Sherman" hangs a little sign which with the greatest precision informs you that out of one such tree it is possible to build no less than forty five-room houses and that, if you were to lay that tree beside a Union Pacific train, it would be longer than the train. But, looking at this tree, looking at all this transparent yet dark forest, we did not want to think of five-room houses and of Union Pacific trains. We wanted to pronounce dreamily the words of Pasternak, "cathedral darkness wreathed the forest," and tried as calmly as possible to envisage this "coniferous family" growing peacefully before the world had seen not only Columbus but even Caesar and Alexander of Macedon and even the Egyptian tsar, Tutankhamen.

Instead of five minutes we spent nearly two hours in the forest, until the darkness became thicker than ever. We could not even think of dinner before returning into the valley. The best thing we could have done was to turn back without further delay. But at this point the Adamses suddenly looked at each other, and on their faces appeared two identical, ill-boding smiles. It was clear to us what our kind friends had in mind. In vain did we plead with them to bethink themselves, to consider their baby. But the Adamses were implacable. Taking each other by the hand, they went off to get information. It was our luck that they returned very quickly, since there was absolutely no place where they could get information, except perhaps from "General Sherman." The forest had been deserted long ago. It became very cold.

"Well, now, I`m glad of that. We'd better turn back to the old road."

"We`ll have to go back," Mrs. Adams said with a sigh, starting the motor.

"It would be well," said Mr. Adams, "to find out whether there is some other road into the valley."

"Why do we need another road? We have the excellent road over which we have come here."

"A little additional information never hurts."

At this point, to our horror, we saw the figure of a warden. He had nothing to do, he was in an excellent mood, and he was whistling gaily. The Adamses pounced upon him like werewolves.

"How do you do?" said Mr. Adams.

"How do you do?" replied the warden.

And the questioning began. No less than fifty times the warden said: "Yes, ma'am," and the same number of times: "No, ma'am."

"Gentlemen!" exclaimed Mr. Adams, resuming his place in the machine. "We have found a new road. Right past 'General Grant.' It is near here, about fifty miles away."

"But it is already dark. We won't be able to see anything, anyway."

"Don't say 'we won't see anything.' You must not talk like that."

Before finally starting on our journey, Mrs. Adams decided to verify the correctness of the information she had received, and again called the warden over.

"So we must go straight ahead?" she asked.

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Until we reach 'General Grant'?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"And then turn to the right?"

"No, ma'am. To the left."

"And not to the right?"

"No, ma'am."

"To the third crossing?"

"No, ma'am; to the fourth crossing."

"Thank you very much!" cried Mr. Adams.

And thus began the great campaign of the night, from the heights of the Sierra Nevadas to the California Valley. For nearly two hours we drove in complete darkness. We did not see what grew around us, and no doubt will never see it again. It is possible that " General Grant" was there and "General Lee," and maybe even a score of other generals of the North and of the South. At each turn the light of our headlights glided over smooth chalky cliffs. To the left was a deep black ravine. Far below a few lights were dimly gleaming. Suddenly our machine tugged and the rear wheels began to slide. We remembered at once the day of mishaps, the Rocky Mountains, Gallup, and we held our breath. The automobile, losing direction, turned on its own hub for some distance, skidded backward, and finally stopped a few inches from the edge of an abyss.

"No, no," muttered Mr. Adams, trying to get out of the machine and striking his elbow on the window. "Be calm, calm ... Yes, yes, yes... It's all over now!"

We stepped down into the road and saw that we were standing on ice.

One cabin was in order. We put it on, and carefully began to push our machine. Mrs. Adams opened up skilfully and the automobile gingerly moved ahead. It had become a habit with us when suffering heavily on the road to maintain a proud silence. We were silent on this occasion too. Only Mr. Adams whispered passionately:

"Becky, Becky! No more than five miles an hour! No, seriously. You must understand that it is no joke to fall off the Sierra Nevadas!"

Among the tree-tops of the firs hanging over the abyss a large red moon appeared.

The descent down the icy road continued for a long while. We lost all sense of time while our stomachs lost all conception of food. Finally the icy stretch ended. But a new misfortune confronted us. The red column of the meter which indicated the level of the petrol in the tank went down to the limit and was scarcely noticeable.

"Our petrol has gone to the devil!" Mr. Adams exclaimed in elation and horror.

We drove for a short while longer, listening to the sound of the motor and trying to figure out how we would spend the night when the petrol would give out and the machine stopped.

Just then something happened which was appropriate in America, tin-land of automobile wonders. A petrol station appeared, a small station with only one pump, but how overjoyed we were to see it! Again service began! Life began! A sleepy man, muttering "Yes, ma'am" and "No, ma'am," filled our tank full of petrol. After twenty miles, we noticed that he had forgotten to screw on the cap. We drove to the very city of Fresno without a cap, afraid to throw cigarette butts out of the window, because we decided that open petrol might catch fire and our car would go to the devil, and along with it, of course, we too would go to the devil.

For a long while we travelled along a highway planted on both sides with palms.

The city of Fresno, famous, as Mr. Adams told us, because many Greeks live there, was asleep. There was not a soul on the streets. Only one extraordinarily tall policeman walked slowly from store to store, stopping at each one to make sure that the lock was intact. The American Greeks could sleep in peace.

When we drove up to the hotel it was twelve o'clock—midnight.

The speedometer showed that that day we had travelled three hundred and seventy-five miles. Mrs. Adams had sat behind the wheel for sixteen hours on end. It was a real record. We wanted to shout "Hurrah!" But we could not. We had lost our voices.

31 San Francisco

ABOUT FIFTY MILES away from San Francisco travellers become witnesses of a struggle between two competing organizations, the owners of the San Mateo Bridge and the owners of the ferry. The point is that to reach San Francisco from the Oakland side one must pass across the bay. At first you meet small modest bill-boards along the road. On one of these the bridge is advertised, and on the other the ferry-boats. So far travellers do not understand anything. As the bill-boards become wider and higher, the voices of the owners of the ferry begin to sound more persuasive.

"The shortest and cheapest way to San Francisco is across San Mateo Bridge," shout the owners of the bridge.

"The quickest and pleasantest journey to San Francisco is in the ferry! A first-class restaurant! An enchanting view of the Golden Gate!" shout the ferry owners at the top of their voices.

At the point where the roads branch out the bill-boards attain idiotic dimensions. They shut out the sky and the sun. Here the traveller must finally decide on his direction.

We chose the ferry, evidently out of a sense of contradicting the owners of the San Mateo Bridge. We saw several machines turn decisively in the direction of the bridge, apparently because of a feeling of dislike for the ferry owners.

Having passed Oakland, the petrol-asphaltish appearance of which confirmed once again that we were in America, we stopped at the ferry dock. A small line of automobiles was already waiting there. We did not have to wait long—about ten minutes. A bell rang out, and a broad-nosed ferry, with two thin and high stacks side by side, came to the dock. The sailors dropped a gangplank, and one after the other several score automobiles drove off the ferry. We did not see a single pedestrian passenger. The machines drove past our motorized column, in the direction of Oakland. Immediately the bell rang again and it was our turn to drive one after the other to the warm places still smelling of petrol and oil. The entire operation of unloading and loading the ferry took no more than two minutes. The automobiles were disposed on the lower deck, on either side of the engine-room, in two rows on each side, and the ferry pulled away.

"I don't think we have to lock our car," remarked Mrs. Adams, look ing at the passengers, who, carelessly leaving the doors of their cars open, went to the upper deck.

"But I'll take the key to the motor with me in any case," said Mr, Adams. "You must remember, Becky, that caution is the traveller's best friend."

We went above. Over the engine-room was an open space with wooden benches, two pinball games, automatic chewing-gum machines, and a small restaurant. Forward and aft were decks reserved for promenading, while on either side, over the automobiles, were several bridges with two lifeboats at each end. Astern the star-spangled banner snapped in the wind.

Here was the old steam-boat world, with the smells of seaweed and hot machine oil, with the taste of salt on the lips, with peeling enamel on the rails, with whistles and steam, with a fresh Novorossiisk wind and Sebastopol seagulls that, crying, floated on the wind above the stern, The bay was so wide that at first we could not make out the opposite shore on the horizon. At that point the width of the bay is more than five miles. We seemed to be going out into the open sea.

"I surmise, gentlemen," said Mr. Adams, "that you do not expect to feast your eyes on the Golden Gate?"

We said that that was precisely what we intended to do.

"In vain, sirs! The Golden Gate is very much like your Muscovite Myasnitsky Gate, in the sense that it does not exist at all. It is simply an exit from the bay into the ocean, which, by the way, cannot be seen from the ferry-boat."

"But the ferry-boat advertised down the entire length of the road a view of the Golden Gate!"

"You ask too much of the joint stock company of the San Francisco ferries," Mr. Adams said. "You acquire the right to ride across the bay, You receive harbourage for your car. You can obtain chewing gum from an automatic machine. Yet, in addition, you expect to see the Golden Gate! Truly, you must take pity on the owners of the ferry. If even now they can scarcely manage to exist because of competition with the San Mateo Bridge, what will happen to them in another two years when that thing over there is finished, in fighting which they spent a million dollars?"

Mr. Adams pointed with his hand to a construction which from a distance looked like cables stretched across the bay.

So that's what it was—this world-renowned technical wonder—the famous suspension bridge! The nearer the ferry came to it, the more grandiose it seemed. To the right, almost on the horizon, could be seen the contours of another bridge being built across the bay.

The Empire State Building, Niagara, the Ford plant, the Grand Canyon, Boulder Dam, sequoias, and now the suspension bridges of San Francisco—they were all phenomena of the same order. American nature and American technique not only supplement each other in order jointly to astonish the imagination of man, but to squelch him. They gave expressive and precise conceptions of the extent, the dimensions, and the wealth of the country, where everything, no matter what it might be, must be the tallest, the broadest, and the most costly in the world. If it's an excellent road, then it must be a million miles long. If there are automobiles, then there must be twenty-five million of them. If it's a house, a building, then it must be a hundred and two stories high. If it's a suspension bridge, then it must have a main span a mile long.

Now Mrs. Adams could freely cry: "Look! Look!" Nobody stopped her. And she took full advantage of her right. The ferry passed a barred pylon which rose out of the water. It was broad and high, like " General Sherman." From its top our ferry must have seemed as small as a man at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Half of the pylon was painted an aluminium colour. The other half was as yet covered with red lead.

From this point we could already have a good view of San Francisco, which grows out of the water like a little New York. But it seemed pleasanter than New York. A gay white city coming down to the bay in an amphitheatre.

"Here, gentlemen," said Mr. Adams, "you don't know what this bay really is! Seriously! The fleets of all the governments of the world can find room here. Yes, yes. It would be well to gather them all here, all of those fleets, and sink them all."

Chatting gaily, we admired now the bridge, and now the city.

"Where are you from, folks?" we suddenly heard a flagrantly Volga basso say.

We looked around. Before us stood a sailor of the ferry-boat in a uniform which disclosed the striped sweat-shirt common to all the sailors of the world. On the black ribbon of his blue cap we made out the name of the ferry-boat: Golden Gate. He had a broad red face, grey temples, and blue eyes.

"Are you really from Russia?"

"From Moscow."

"Oh, my God!" exclaimed the deck hand of the ferry Golden Gate. "Really from Moscow! Don't you worry, now; I'm no enemy of yours. Well, how is Russia? How is Moscow? Have you ever been to Siberia?"

And without waiting for a reply to any one of his questions, he hastily began to tell us about himself. Evidently he had been dying to talk for a long time, and he talked rapidly, glancing now and then at the approaching shore.

"And you have never been at Blagoveshchensk? That's a pity, because it`s my home town! The devil only knows me! I pulled out in the year `nineteen, at the time of Kolchak. It isn't that I ran away, but you know

...And yet, to tell the truth, I did run away ... I am disgusted with myself when I recall it. I have three brothers navigating on the Amur. They're all like me, only a little bit wider. All three of them are captains, each in command of a steamer. And I, too, you know, used to be a captain.Everyone in our family was a captain. We were a family of captains. And here, now ... ekh, the devil! A common sailor! And where? On a ferry-boat! And I have to be thankful that they took me on ..."

"How did it all come about? You would have been a captain now!"

The whistle resounded. The ferry was rapidly approaching the shore.

"But I have comforts!" He pronounced the word English fashion. "I have comforts," he said.

We do not understand to this day whether he was speaking seriously or bitterly, with irony, about his comforts on a ferry-boat.

"Well, good luck to you!" he cried. "I've got to run! My job!" We hurried down, arriving just in time, because the gang-plank was being dropped from the ferry and all the automobiles except ours were already sputtering impatiently.

"Quick! Give me the key to the motor!" cried Mrs. Adams to her husband.

From the rapidity with which Mr. Adams began to dig in all his pockets, we understood that a catastrophe would occur immediately. Not finding the key in his vest, he began to look for it in his coat. "Well, what's the matter with you?" Mrs. Adams urged him on. The first machines had already driven to shore. "Right away, Becky, right away!" An impatient signal sounded behind us. "You lost the key!" cried Mrs. Adams.

"Oh, Becky, Becky!" muttered Mr. Adams, digging in his pockets and bringing up some folded pieces of paper to his eyes. "Don't talk like that: 'you lost the key!'"

But we were already enveloped in the honking of automobile horns. The machines behind us roared, and the machines awaiting their turn on the shore did likewise. A group of sailors ran up to us. "Quick, quick!" they cried.

Deafened by the outcries, Mr. Adams, instead of searching systematically, began to go through utterly incomprehensible motions. He rubbed his eyeglasses and looked under the automobile, then he looked at the floor, lifting each one of his legs, then he made an attempt to run to the upper deck.