In the spring of 1913 St. John Skinner came back from Africa, after spending nine or ten years somewhere near the Zambesi. He travelled up to Waterloo by the electric train, and the three very stout men who were in the same first-class compartment seemed to look at him with surprise. On arriving at his hotel he pushed his way through a crowd of fat persons in the hall. Then he changed his clothes, and went round to his Club to dine.
The dining-room was filled with members of extraordinary obesity, all eating heartily. In the fat features of one of them he thought he recognised a once familiar face. "Round," said he, "how are you?"
The stout man stopped eating, and gazed at him anxiously. "Why," he murmured, after a while, in the soft voice that comes from folds of fat, "it must be Skinner. My dear fellow, what is the matter with you? Have you had a fever?"
"I'm all right," answered the other; "what makes you think I've been ill?"
"Ill, man!" said Round, "why you've wasted away to nothing. You're a perfect skeleton."
"If it's a question of bulk," remarked Skinner, "I'm much more surprised. You've grown so stout, every fellow in the Club seems so stout, everyone I've seen is as fat as--as--as you are."
"Heavens!" exclaimed Round, "you don't mean to say I've been putting on more flesh? I'm the light weight of the Club. I only weigh sixteen stone. No, no, you're chaffing, or you judge by your own figure."
"Not a bit," said the other; "you and I used to weigh about the same. What on earth has happened to you all?"
"Well," said Round, "perhaps you're right. It's very much what the doctors say. It's the fashionable complaint, motorobesity. Sit down, and dine with me, and I'll tell you what the idea is. You see, it's like this. For ten years or so everybody who could afford a motor of some sort has had one. We've all had one. Not to have a motor has been simply ridiculous, if not disreputable. So everybody has ridden about all day in the fresh air, never had any exercise, and got an enormous appetite. Besides, in the summer we've always been drinking beer to wash down the dust, and in the winter soup, or spirits, or something to warm us. My dear fellow, you can't think what an appetite motoring gives you. I had an enormous steak for my lunch at Winchester to-day, and a great lump of plum cake with my tea at Aldershot, and my aunt, the General's wife, made me bring a bag of biscuits to eat on the way up, and yet I'm so hungry now that I should feel quite uncomfortable if the thirst those biscuits, and the dust, gave me didn't make me almost forget it. I suppose everyone is really getting fat. One notices it when one does happen to see a thin fellow like you. Why, in all the Clubs they've had to have new arm-chairs, because the old ones were too narrow. However, I've talked enough about motoring. So glad to see you again, old chap. Of course you'll get a motor as soon as possible."
"Well," said Skinner, "I rather think I shall buy a horse."
"My dear fellow," cried Round, "what an idea! Horse-riding is such awfully bad form. Besides, you can't go any pace. Look at me. I wouldn't get on a horse, and be shaken to pieces."
"I should think not," said Skinner, "but I think I should prefer that to motorobesity."
An advertisement in The Motor quotes the testimony of a gentleman from Moreton-in-the-Marsh, who states that he has run a certain car "nearly 412,500 miles in four months, and is more than pleased with it." As this works out (on a basis of twenty-four hours' running per diem) at about 143 miles per hour, we have pleasure in asking what the police are doing in Moreton-in-the-Marsh and its vicinity.
Noticing an advertisement of a book entitled "The Complete Motorist," an angry opponent of the new method of locomotion writes to suggest that the companion volume, "The Complete Pedestrian," had better be written at once before it becomes impossible to find an entire specimen.
MAXIM FOR CYCLISTS.--"Try-cycle before you Buy-cycle."
Illustration: Motorist (a novice) has been giving chairman of local urban council a practical demonstration of the ease with which a motor-car can be controlled when travelling at a high speed.
Illustration: LOVE'S ENDURANCE
Miss Dolly (to her fiancé). "Oh, Jack, this is delightful! If you'll only keep up the pace, I'm sure I shall soon gain confidence!"
[_Poor Jack has already run a mile or more, and is very short of condition._
Illustration: TU QUOQUE.--Cyclist (a beginner who has just collided with freshly-painted fence). "Confound your filthy paint! Now, just look at my coat!" Painter. "'Ang yer bloomin' coat! 'Ow about my paint?"
Illustration: NOTE TO THE SUPERSTITIOUS
It is considered lucky for a black cat to cross your path.
Illustration: WAITING FOR
A Study of Rural
"W'y, I remembers the time w'en I'd 'ave stopped that for furious drivin', an' I reckon it's only goin' about a paltry fifteen mile an hour!"
Illustration: BIGGER GAME
Police Methods
"Ar! Now them cyclists is puttin' on a fairish pace! Summat about twenty mile an hour, I s'pose. But 'tain't no business o' mine. I'm 'ere to stop motor-caws. Wot ho!"
