The Chauffeur and the Chaperon. C. N. Williamson
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would please him. As for his painting, you could hardly go round a corner in Holland without stumbling on a scene for a picture, and he should come across them everywhere; he had no choice of direction. But in seven or eight weeks we could explore the waterways pretty thoroughly. Our skipper would be able to put us on the right track, and let us miss nothing. Had we, by-the-by, asked Mr. van Buren if he'd any skippers up his sleeve? Oh, well, it didn't matter that we'd forgotten. He himself had the names of several, besides some men he had already seen, and he would interview them all. It was certain that in a day or two at most, he could find exactly the right person for the place, and we might be sure that while we were away at Scheveningen he would not be idle in our common interests.
"After all, even you must admit that men are of some use," said Phil, when we were at the hotel again, waiting for Cousin Robert and his car. "Supposing you'd had to organize the tour alone, as we expected, could you have done it?"
"Of course," I replied, bravely.
"What! and engaged a chauffeur and a skipper? Who would have told you what to do? I'm sure we could never have started without your cousin Robert and Mr. Starr."
"What has Cousin Robert got to do with it?" I demanded.
Phil reflected. "Now I come to think of it, I don't know exactly. But he is so dependable; and there's so much of him."
"I hope there won't be too much," said I.
"I like tall men," remarked Phil, dreamily. Then she looked at her watch. "It's five minutes to four. He ought to be here soon."
"He'll come inside ten minutes," I prophesied.
But he came in three. I might have known he would be before his time, rather than after. And he arrived with a nice letter from his mother.
Neither Phyllis nor I had ever been in a motor-car until we got gingerly into that one. I had heard her say that she would never thus risk her life; but she made no mention of this resolution to Cousin Robert. If she had, it would have been useless; for without doubt she would in the end have had to go; and it saved time not to demur.
V
The car which stood throbbing at the door of the hotel was large and handsome, as if made to match my cousin, and it was painted flame color.
"I am just learning to drive," said Robert, who wore a motoring-cap which was particularly becoming. "I do not know much about automobiles yet; soon I shall buy one. It is rowing I like best, and skating in winter, though I have not time to amuse myself except at the end of weeks, for I am manager of my poor father's factory. But my fiancée likes the automobile, and to please her I am learning with my friend's car."
"That is good of you," said Phyllis.
"Yes, it is," he replied gravely. "Would you that I drive or the chauffeur? He has more experience."
I left the decision to Phil, as she is the timid one, but to my surprise she answered——
"Oh, you, of course."
Cousin Robert looked pleased. "Are you not afraid?" he inquired, beaming.
"Ye—es, I am afraid, for I've never been before. But I shall be less afraid with you than with him." And she glanced at a weedy youth who was pouring oil from a long-nosed tin into something obscure.
"Will you sit in front by my side?" he asked. And it was only after Phil had accepted the invitation that he remembered to hope I wouldn't mind the chauffeur being in the tonneau with me. "It must have been one of you," he added, "and you and I are cousins."
"Twice removed," I murmured; but he was helping Phil into the car, and did not hear.
It was a wild moment when we started. But it would have looked odd to cling to the chauffeur for protection, so I did nothing; and it calmed me to see how Phyllis bore herself. She didn't even grasp the arm of the seat; she merely gazed up into Cousin Robert's face with a sweetly feminine look, which said, "My one hope is in you, but I trust you utterly." It was enough to melt the heart of a stone giant, even when seen through goggles. I had an idea that this giant was not made of stone, and I wondered what the fiancée of my cousin twice removed was made of.
After the first thrill of starting, when we seemed to be tearing like a tailless comet through a very small portion of space not designed to hold comets, I grew happy, though far from tranquil. I can't imagine people ever feeling really tranquil in an automobile, and I don't believe they do, though they may pretend. I'm sure I should not, even if I became a professional chauffeur, which heaven forbid. But part of the enjoyment came through not feeling tranquil. There was a savage joy in thinking every instant that you were going to be dashed to pieces, or else that you would dash somebody else to pieces, while all the time you knew in your heart that nothing of the sort would happen.
The car went splendidly, and I believe I should have guessed it was a Dutch one, even if Cousin Robert hadn't told me; it made so little noise, yet moved so masterfully, and gave an impression of so much reserve power. Indeed, I might have thought out several nice similes if there hadn't been quantities of trams and heavy drays blundering about, or if the inhabitants of Rotterdam had not had a habit of walking in large family groups in the middle of the street. The big horn through which Robert every now and again blew a mournful blast, was confusing when it arrived in the midst of an idea; and a little curved thing (like the hunting-horn of old pictures) into which the chauffeur occasionally mewed, was as disconcerting to my nerves as to those of the pedestrians who hopped out of the way.
The more we saw of Rotterdam, the more extraordinary did the city appear, and the more did I wonder that people should refer to it merely as a port.
"It is not a bad town," Robert said to Phyllis, in the half-fond, half-deprecating way in which, when talking to strangers, we allude to that spot of earth we happen to inhabit. "I would not change to live at The Hague, though the diplomatic set give sneers at us and call us commercial."
"Just as Edinburgh sneers at Glasgow," cut in Phil.
"Yes, like that. I have been much to Scotland on my business, and I know," answered Robert. "But we have many good things to show strangers, if they would look; pictures, and museums, and old streets; but it is not fashionable to admire Rotterdam. You should see the Boompjes at night, when the lights shine in the water. It is only a big dyke, but once it was the part where the rich people lived, and those who know about such things say the old houses are good. And I should like you to see where I live with my mother and sisters. It is an old house, too, in a big garden, with a pond and an island covered with flowers. But we do not pass now, so you must see it a future day."
To say all this, Cousin Robert had to yell above the roar of traffic on the stone pavements; but by-and-by, as town changed into country, we left the stones behind and came into the strangest road I have ever seen. It ran beside a little river—the Schie—which looked like a canal, and it was made of neat, purplish-brown bricks, laid edge to edge.
"Klinker, we call it," said Cousin Robert. "It's good for driving; never much dust or mud; and when you motor it gives grip to the 'pneus.' It wouldn't do for us of the Netherlands to leave our roads bare."
"Why, what would happen?" I bent toward him to ask. "Would the bottom of Holland drop out?"
"I think yes," he replied, seriously. "The saying is that there has been as much of sand laid on the road between Rotterdam and The Hague as would reach the top of the cathedral spire at Amsterdam, which you will see one day."
"Dear me, and yet it's so low and flat, now," soliloquized Phil. "Lower than the canals."
"It is nothing here to some places. We work hard to save the country we have made with our hands, we Netherlanders. All the streets and gardens of Rotterdam, and other towns too, sink down and down; but we are used to that. We do not stop to care, but go to work adding more steps up to the houses, so we can get in at our