Hampered by no announcements, with no record to make or break, the trip was for pleasure,—­a mid-summer jaunt.  We did intend to make the run to Buffalo as fast as roads would permit,—­but for exhilaration only, and not with any thought of making a record that would stand against record-making machines, driven by record-breaking men.

It is much better to start for nowhere and get there than to start for somewhere and fall by the wayside.  Just keep going, and the machine will carry you beyond your expectations.

The Professor knew nothing about machinery and less about an automobile, but where ignorance is bliss it is double-distilled folly to know anything about the eccentricities of an automobile.

To enjoy automobiling, one must know either all or nothing about the machine,—­a little knowledge is a dangerous thing; on the part of the guest it leads to all sorts of apprehensions, on the part of the chauffeur to all sorts of experiments.  About five hundred miles is the limit of a man’s ignorance; he then knows enough to make trouble; at the end of another five hundred he is of assistance, at the end of the third he will run the machine himself—­your greatest pleasure is in the first five hundred.  With some precocious individuals these figures may be reduced somewhat.

The Professor adjusted his spectacles and looked at the machine: 

“A very wonderful contrivance, and one that requires some skill to operate.  From lack of experience, I cannot hope to be of much practical assistance at first, but possibly a theoretical knowledge of the laws and principles governing things mechanical may be of service in an emergency.  Since receiving your telegram, I have brushed up a little my knowledge of both kinematics and dynamics, though it is quite apparent that the operation of these machines, accompanied, as it is said, by many restraints and perturbations, falls under the latter branch.  In view of the possibility—­remote, I trust—­of the machine refusing to go, I have devoted a little time to statics, and therefore feel that I shall be something more than a supercargo.”

“Well, you are equipped, Professor; no doubt your knowledge will prove useful.”

“Knowledge is always useful if people in this busy age would only pause to make use of it.  Mechanics has been defined as the application of pure mathematics to produce or modify motion in inferior bodies; what could be more apt?  Is it not our intention to produce or modify motion in this inferior body before us?”

Days after the Professor found the crank a more useful implement for the inducing of motion.

It was Thursday morning, August 1, at exactly seven o’clock, that we passed south on Michigan Avenue towards South Chicago and Hammond.  A glorious morning, neither hot nor cold, but just deliciously cool, with some promise—­afterwards more than fulfilled—­of a warm day.

The hour was early, policemen few, streets clear, hence fast speed could be made.