E. W. Hornung

“ Ghum raised no objection to thirty-five miles on the speedometer, nor yet to taking a corner on the wrong side or bucketing over patches of new metal, all of which were old tricks of the new chauffeur. If the Jam himself was as sensible it might be a pleasant place both on and off the car.
And a pleasant place it proved, at all events in the way of creature comforts and letting a man alone at his job; but Oswald Alfred did speedily find himself lonelier at other times than suited his habit as he liked to live. ”

“ But you may teach a man to drive like an arrow when there is nothing else on the Ripley Road, and yet never know when a wobble of the wheel or a foot on the wrong pedal may spell instantaneous disaster. It was only a wing and a step that Mr. Ghum damaged to the like detriment of a passing car; but he was seen no more at the wheel, and it was Smart Sahib (as the menials sometimes called him with rolling eyes) who took a select load in the favorite direction about a week after their last encounter with Lord Amyott. ”

“ Over Hindhead hung a skyful of stars, and if there were fewer to be seen from the lane near Liphook, it was not the fault of stars or sky. This time no wistful peeping into Paradise, but confident entry at the side gate on the part of that powerful Peri Mr. Ghum and his serene master. The white youth scarcely noticed that a dark one quietly took the vacant seat beside him, that another leant as quietly against the Stepney wheel, or for that matter that there had been four of them seated behind instead of three. It was not a night on which you noticed all you ought ”

“ Ghum proved to reason and Oswald Alfred's best smile. The lad had been getting fifty shillings in his last place, but of course keeping himself; in the new one he was promised forty and all found. It was not perhaps quite the kind of arrangement that a more independent chauffeur would have been so ready to entertain, but the financial improvement was such that he would soon be in a position to pick and choose again, unless he went and got into fresh trouble through the criminal negligence of others on the road. ”

“ Ghum came to his assistance at the same instant. "Faster! faster," he hissed again, with his barrel against the young man's ribs. "Come to stoppage this side Boavista, and you join the lordship this very night!" ”

“ His tone had been bitter and truculent in some curiously subtle degree, which incurred no snub yet could penetrate the patriotic hide of a British coachman's son, and inject the virus of a vague resentment. ”

“ Motoring was stated to be part of the treatment, and yet they did not motor daily, nor on the likeliest days, nor yet always when the chosen day was at its best. Often it would be the latter part of a dismal afternoon before Oswald Alfred went skidding through the muddy lanes with the burly Ghum beside him, his Highness and minor satellites abreast behind, and the acetylene head-lamps duly primed by order ”

“ The car, a sound second-hand Cleland-Talboys, had been driven thus far by a chauffeur from the works in Notting Dale, where it had been some days undergoing repairs. Oswald Alfred very properly sought particulars, and the works' chauffeur was saying that so far as he knew there had been nothing at all the matter with her, when Mr. Ghum closed a promising discussion by inquiring if Smart could find his way to the Portsmouth Road.
"Then the sooner the better we are on it," he said curtly on getting an affirmative reply. "The car has been tune up for you, like they say in the classic ”

“ This again was a mere effect of causes in themselves both strange and disagreeable. There wasn't a female in the house, for instance; dusky heathen shuffled about the kitchen, and the new-comer's was the one white skin on the premises. ”