"On your car?" Jelf stepped back a pace and looked at the other with
very flattering interest and admiration. "Not your car! Have you a
car?"
Bones said he had a car, and explained it at length. He even waxed as
enthusiastic about his machine as had Mr. Jelf on the subject of the
lamp that never went out. And Jelf agreed with everything that Bones
said. Apparently he was personally acquainted with the Carter-Crispley
car. He had, so to speak, grown up with it. He knew its good points
and none of its bad points. He thought the man who chose a car like
that must have genius beyond the ordinary. Bones agreed. Bones had
reached the conclusion that he had been mistaken about Jelf, and that
possibly age had sobered him (it was nearly six months since he had
perpetrated his last libel). They parted the best of friends. He had
agreed to attend a demonstration at the workshop early the following
morning, and Jelf, who was working on a ten per cent. commission basis,
and had already drawn a hundred on account from the vendors, was there
to meet him.
In truth it was a noble lamp--very much like other motor lamps, except
that the bulb was, or apparently was, embedded in solid glass. Its
principal virtue lay in the fact that it carried its own accumulator,
which had to be charged weekly, or the lamp forfeited its title.
Mr. Jelf explained, with the adeptness of an expert, how the lamp was
controlled from the dashboard, and how splendid it was to have a light
which was independent of the engine of the car or of faulty
accumulators, and Bones agreed to try the lamp for a week. He did more
than this: he half promised to float a company for its manufacture, and
gave Mr. Jelf fifty pounds on account of possible royalties and
commission, whereupon Mr. Jelf faded from the picture, and from that
moment ceased to take the slightest interest in a valuable article
which should have been more valuable by reason of the fact that it bore
his name.
Three days later Hamilton, walking to business, was overtaken by a
beautiful blue Carter-Crispley, ornamented, it seemed from a distance,
by two immense bosses of burnished silver. On closer examination they
proved to be nothing more remarkable than examples of the Tibbett-Jelf
Lamp.
"Yes," said Bones airily, "that's the lamp, dear old thing. Invented
in leisure hours by self and Jelf. Step in, and I'll explain."
"Where do I step in," asked Hamilton, wilfully dense--"into the car or
into the lamp?"
Bones patiently smiled and waved him with a gesture to a seat by his
side. His explanation was disjointed and scarcely informative; for
Bones had yet to learn the finesse of driving, and he had a trick of
thinking aloud.