I do not know whether Perkins meant his last sentence as a finale to his explanation or as a scoff at my automobile. In either case I was certainly “there,” for my auto took one of those unaccountable fits, and would not move. I dismounted and walked around the machine with a critical, inquiring eye. I poked gingerly into its ribs and exposed vitals; lifted up lids; turned thumb-screws, and shook everything that looked as if its working qualities would be improved by a little shaking, but my automobile continued to balk.
A few small boys suggested that I try coaxing it with a lump of sugar or building a fire under it, or some of the other remedies for balking animals; but Perkins stood by with his hands in his pockets and smiled. He seemed to be expecting something.
I am not proud, and I have but little fear of ridicule, but a man is only human. Fifth Avenue is not exactly the place where a man wishes to lie on the fiat of his back. To be explicit, I may say that when I want to lie on my back in the open air, I prefer to lie on a grassy hillside, with nothing above me but the blue sky, rather than on the asphalt pavement of Fifth Avenue, with the engine-room of an automobile half a foot above my face.
Perkins smiled encouragingly. The crowd seemed to be waiting for me to do it. I felt, myself, that I should have to do it. So I assumed the busy, intense, oblivious, hardened expression that is part of the game, and lay down on the top of the street. Personally, I did not feel that I was doing it as gracefully as I might after more practice; but the crowd were not exacting. They even cheered me, which was kind of them; but it did not relieve me of the idiotic sensation of going to bed in public with my clothes on.
If I had not been such an amateur I should doubtless have done it better; but it was disconcerting, after getting safely on my back, to find that I was several feet away from my automobile. I think it was then that I swore, but I am not sure. I know I swore about that time; but whether it was just then, or while edging over to the automobile, I cannot positively say.
I remember making up my mind to swear again as soon as I got my head and chest under the automobile, not because I am a swearing man, but to impress the crowd with the fact that I was not there because I liked it. I wanted them to think I detested it. I did detest it. But I did not swear. As my eyes looked upward for the first time at the underneath of my automobile, I saw this legend painted upon it: “Don't swear. Drink Glenguzzle.”