I. A. R. Wylie

“ One of Gwendoline's headlights had gone out, and the effect, taken with a distinct list to starboard, was absurdly like a tipsy wink. Mrs. Melrood, from dry land, flashed a light over her sign-board.
"The Crown, Old Kent Road, Hill Rise," she read aloud. "Seems to have come a little out of its way." The torch whisked round to the figure standing close to her. There was a moment's silence. "Oh, it's you, Gudgeon, is it?" said Mrs. Melrood.
Mr. Gudgeon touched his cap.
"Yes, ma'am."
Mr. Gudgeon was wet to the knees. He had driven a hundred miles without food or drink. ”

“ Then the police, efficient and magisterial, stalked down between the double row of silent and depressed Ragamuffins. For of course everything was over. Whenever the Law appeared everything nice always was over. Whatever you were doing you just naturally took to your heels. The policeman opened the glass window.
"Look here, my man, you pull up at once."
Mr. Gudgeon could not possibly have mistaken the accents of authority. Gwendoline gathered speed.
"You're under arrest," said the policeman.
"He's mad," said the Stout Gentleman. "Why don't you do something instead of talking rubbish." ”

“ They just start out blindly and keep on going, as Mr. Gudgeon did. Of course Luck was with him. It was a slack time of the day and the main thoroughfares were fairly clear, and when they weren't Mr. Gudgeon swerved into side streets, which never having seen a bus before were considerably astonished, and if necessary turned back on himself so that the mounted police got hot on several wrong scents and never so much as caught a glimpse of him. And then Gwendoline played up like the great-hearted gallant creature she was. ”

“ Gudgeon had Gwendoline. Gwendoline was the little fire on Mr. Gudgeon's secret hearth. He loved her, and though he never thought about it, not being a reflective person, he was certain that she liked him best. There was an understanding between them. He knew her ways: when she liked to be "changed down," how to coax her up Hill Rise, and when, in spite of the garage expert, she was feeling "below par." Unlike the other drivers he never left her to freeze stiff in the bitter winter blasts whilst he warmed himself before the fire at The King's Arms, but covered her radiator with his own blanket. ”

“ Gudgeon drove the old Atlas horse-bus from Camden Town to London Bridge, and drove it as well as any man in London for all that he was such a slow moving, slow-spoken fellow. Later the red hair had become a sandy halo round a shiny bald head, and the rosy complexion a veined and weather-beaten purple, and the horse-bus a thundering, roaring, bustling motor juggernaut. ”

“ Gudgeon had "made away with himself." Mrs. Judd said so, and what Mrs. Judd said went.
As to Elfreda, being so small, she was forgotten almost at once. Mrs. Golightly, who disliked investigations, said that she had gone to relatives, and Rosemary Lane opined that wherever she was she couldn't be worse off. And the Stout Gentleman, to whom one child was just like another and quite as tiresome, never even missed her.
In any case no one would have recognised her.
For it is amazing how quickly one begins to grow pink and burst out of one's clothes when one is young and happy. ”

“ Gudgeon's business in life. Life, if you were one of the lucky ones, consisted in doing to-day what you did yesterday and what you hoped to do tomorrow. Change meant misfortune, illness or losing your job or getting into trouble with the police. You got up in the morning and washed and ate a rasher of bacon swilled down with a cup of Mrs. Judd's stewed tea. Then you smoked a pipe, and at eight sharp you were at The Crown waiting for Gwendoline. ”

“ Melrood leant cautiously over the strip of water and poked Gwendoline in the ribs.
"I suppose it isn't your bus, is it, Gudgeon?"
"No, ma'am, not so to speak, ma'am."
"You stole it?"
"Yes, ma'am, I s'ppose that's 'ow it seems to most people."
"Well, why any sane person should want to steal a bus——" The torch light wavered and fell a point. "And what on earth is that?" demanded Mrs. Melrood sharply.
"That" was Elfreda. ”

“ Judd's kitchen fire, and if it was a morning you stayed in bed. On race days you put a shilling "on" with the drawer at The Crown just to reassure yourself that "'orses were still 'orses" somewhere in the world, and on Sunday morning, whatever happened, you changed your shirt.
That was life. Everybody's life.
Some men, of course, had wives and children. Or they took to drink. Once Mr. Gudgeon himself had had a love affair but that had been a long time ago, way back in the village whence he came and whose name he had almost forgotten. ”

“ First and foremost there is Elfreda, who might be described as"The Woman in the Case"; then there is Mrs. Melrood with her attendant vestal Sarah, Mrs. Judd, of Rosemary Lane, a policeman, a frightened bus conductor, a stout gentleman and, of course, Mr. Gudgeon himself, with whose mysterious and extraordinary fate the story is primarily concerned. Nor must we forget the Twenty Ragamuffins. These may be regarded as a sort of Greek chorus, though unlike most Greek choruses their comments will be noted for simplicity and directness. To describe each individually would be tiresome. ”

“ Melrood commented. "You haven't been feeding it properly. You shouldn't run away with other people's children. You don't understand them. Its mother'll be fretting herself to death.
People were always talking about Elfreda's mother.
"She ain't got no mother," Mr. Gudgeon blazed up. "No one, she's got. Only me. They beat 'er. I sees 'er arms, black and blue they was, and I couldn't stand it, I wouldn't stand it. A man goes on and on, like an old bus 'orse, puttin' up with things, seein' 'em 'appen day in, day out, and then all of a suddint 'e can't stand no more. ”

“ True, Mr. Gudgeon looked quiet enough, but with men you never could tell. Mrs. Golightly herself boasted that her first husband, being a real gentleman, had thrown her downstairs without so much as lifting his voice. So it was best to keep on the safe side, and when Mr. Gudgeon came out of The Crown with his blanket and said, "Now, you kids," every one withdrew to a respectful distance, and only the boldest Ragamuffin piped out feebly, "Give us a ride, mister?"
V
Still, it was Elfreda, generally considered both backward and poor-spirited, who made the great discovery. ”

“ Judd the idea that he was going "queer."
"It weren't natural," she declared, "calling a bloomin' old bus Gwendoline and pattin' it on its 'ead and talkin' to it as though it were a Christian. I didn't 'old with it and I told 'im so. Much good that did. When a man goes queer he's queer and there ain't no helping 'im."
Except that he had grown more silent, a trifle more foolish-looking as though life were a sort of worsted ball in which he had got himself hopelessly involved, Mrs. Judd had had no reason to complain. He never drank, he paid his way regularly. ”

“ Always full of 'is 'orses, 'e was. 'Sarah Jane's off her feed to-day, Mrs. Judd,' 'e'd tell me, or, 'Sarah Jane's goin' like a three-year-old.' Sarah Jane being 'is favourite. If she'd been 'is own child 'e couldn't 'ave fussed more. And then them there motor-buses!"
"Drat 'em all!" said Mrs. Piggot piously.
Not that Mr. Gudgeon had failed in any way. He had faced the change manfully, carrying over into his new job that feeling for a wayward creature's moods and tempers without which no man can become a successful motor-driver. ”

“ VII
"He's getting past his work," thought the inspector.
"'Ere," said Elfreda.
The inspector went into the pub to tell the bus conductor that it was high time 47X was on its way. A stout gentleman with a heavy gold watch-chain settled himself comfortably in the inside corner away from draughts. Mr. Gudgeon paused on his upward climb. He looked, as the inspector judged, a little old man. He hadn't shaved and there was a sort of baffled, gone-to-seed air about him. No self-respecting bus company could have thought of retaining such a person on their pay-roll. ”

“ The bus conductor grew red with anger. He was a very smart bus conductor who kept his brass buttons shiny and wore his cap over one ear and he felt that he had been made game of. He rang the bell furiously.
"A lot of young scamps. I've 'alf a mind to get the perlice on yer."
He rang again. Several times. Finally, as he was young and impatient, the cord broke. The Stout Gentleman said:
"Much too fast. What's the matter with the man? It's disgraceful," and the bus conductor opened the little glass window over Mr. Gudgeon's head and shouted: "Can't yer hear? ”

“ It don't matter about me. They'd 'ave scrapped me, any'ow, like they'd scrap 'er, my old Gwendoline. She's rocky in 'er engine and I'm getting queer-like in the 'ead, and that's the truth.'
"All the best people are queer in the head, Gudgeon. I am myself."
"But she's such a little 'un. It's an 'ard, long way to go when you're a little 'un and no one caring."
"That's true, Gudgeon."
Mrs. Melrood switched out her torch. "Police after you, I suppose?"
"I make no doubt of it, ma'am."
"Well, damn the police," said Mrs. Melrood cheerfully. She bent down and lifted Elfreda in her arms. ”

“ He said to the bus conductor, "It'll be all right. He's coming to the cross-roads My mate'll stop him."
So he hung out from the side-rail and blew his whistle, and the policeman on point-duty stood out in the middle of the road and held his hand up, and Gwendoline made a sort of skittish side curtsy and was past him and up the hill opposite before you could count twenty.
It was a great shock to every one. Life is made up of illusions, and the illusions about policemen were shattered hopelessly for everybody on board No. ”

“ Just to save himself from official reproof he had failed a friend in the hour of need, and for the first time in his patient, uncomplaining life a tiny point of anger and protest flickered up in him.
"If I'd 'ave stopped they'd 'ave sacked me," he explained to her. And Gwendoline had understood. Gwendoline knew what "them inspectors" were like. She knew what life was. You had to keep "on time," and sooner or later they'd scrap you, anyhow.
And because of Gwendoline Mr. Gudgeon did not know that he was a lonely little man, growing old.
IV
To Elfreda Mr. ”

“ Golightly's husband and her three bouncing boys, and all these people were highly temperamental by nature, which accounted, no doubt, for the fact that the window panes of the one window had had to be plastered up with brown paper, and that none of the three chairs were really to be relied on Mr. ”