Part 17

The next morning while Slobbings was at his office trying to get his mind on work, his wife sneaked over and got the demonstrator to throw away his chew and put on his coat and give her a lesson in driving the little pelican.

That night when she and Slobbings started out, it was she who insisted upon taking the wheel, and this gave Slobbings the pleasure of sitting on the thin edge of Uncertainty and grabbing the Emergency Brake every time another car could be discerned with the naked eye coming toward them.

Whenever she tooted the horn to signal their nervous approach, he would hand her the not-so-loud-dearie caution, hissing said caution between such teeth as he had not already ground off during previous hair-breadth escapes.

If he happened to be the one driving, and stuck out his wing to let the Traffic know he was going to turn a corner in due season provided he did not stall his engine, his wife would tell him that it was not customary nor necessary to injure one’s spine hanging so far over the side of the car. In devious other ways she vented her unstrung condition and frequently referred warmly to his all-round hopelessness as a level-headed driver.

There was a demoniacal something that came and sat between them every time they got into that car. The Dove of Peace never flew within five thousand miles of the tail light at any stage of the tragedy.

Each got the idea that the other felt there was nothing left around the car to be learned, and this naturally led to fierce engagements in which hand grenades were used freely on both sides.

Every time he told her that she shifted her gears like a steam riveter, she would spring back and tell him between her teeth that he couldn’t drive a nail, and then she’d follow through with a mighty beanbammer about his family not being very bright anyway, and no wonder he couldn’t get anything past the porphery.

She accused him of throwing out his chest when he ought to be throwing out his clutch, and he retaliated by charging her with imagining she was Barney Oldfield because she could cut around a moving van without losing more than one mud guard.

In their refreshing evening drives together, the one who would first discover that the Emergency Brake was still on, would get right out on the hood and crow and flap like a Hoosier cock in a congested corn-crib, making the other naturally as pleased as a pup with its tail in the door.

History does not recall that Slobbings and his merry mate ever came to a corner that he didn’t want to turn one way and she another, nor that both ever desired the Top up or down at the same time.

One day about six months after the Home Breaker had been purchased, Slobbings met with a serious business throw-back. No one was to blame but himself. Motoring had interfered with his Business and he had cut his Office from his visiting list.

Among other things there was an over-ripe note at the bank and he was obliged to produce the necessary piastres within twelve hours. So without slipping a syllable to his wife he up and sold the car, receiving therefor an amount so far below original cost that it made him dizzy to look down at it.

A few days later he broke the news to the Gentle One, and, after the lachrymal flood-gates had been opened and closed again in the usual way, she braced up and said it was all right and they would have to Be Brave.

A hell-hot evening in the following August found Slobbings and his wife taking a nice trolley ride out into the country for a sniff of fresh ozone.

They were sitting side by side, looking over the fields of waving wollypus, and he had his arm around her.

Both were silent. They were thinking of the same thing.

“Well anyway,” she said at last, “we did have good times with the little car while it lasted, didn’t we dear?”

“Yes, love,” he replied softly, “those were the happy days.”

Lesson for Today: We don’t know what we’ve got until we haven’t got it any longer.

HOT SKETCH NO. 14

THE WOULD-BE SALES PROMOTER

ONE day a successful Manufacturer who had become strongly addicted to Efficiency Literature after making his pile, sat down and reasoned with himself thus:

“Something is wrong with my business. The Sales Increase for last year was only 120 percent. It should have been 850 percent. The fault lies with my Sales Manager.”

“True, he is a good slob, but he is not good enough. My Salesmen all like him and plug hard on his account, to say nothing of their own; but they don’t plug hard enough.”

“What I need is a Sales Chief who is not stocked up with the dry-bones of Salesmanship—someone who comes from the outside and brings a fresh, crisp point of view—someone who knows nothing at all about the Selling Game. That’s the stunt these days! My present man is in a rut. Raus!”

The morning following this sparkling synthesis, Comrade President called in the pre-damned S. M. and tied a campbell soup can to his Promising Career and sent him clattering up Main Street.

Then he grabbed a note-pad, scribbled off a terse Classified Ad, pressed a button on the waistline of his desk, and told the Office Poodle to get it into the morning papers and quit spitting on the radiator.

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