The Lad and the Lion
(Written:
February-March 1914)
<>
<>Royal automobiles come and go
often in this
story about intrigue in a mythical European kingdom. After his father
was
assassinated, his grandson and apparent heir to the throne, was
spirited from
the palace in one of the “royal motors” and transported out of the
kingdom for
his protection. <> Count Sarnya,
previously one of
the king’s
closest counselors, then took precautions to protect himself.<>
“Ordinarily
he left by the postern door, but today he had order one of the palace
motors to
meet him inside the gates. His own car and police guard waited at the
postern
gate. Count Sarnya was keeping a rendezvous that he did not wish even
his own
police to know about.”
<>Ten years later,
Ferdinand, son
of the
kingdom’s puppet king, used the “royal motors” to help him carry on an
affair
with Hilda de Groot, the daughter of royal gardener. Hans de Groot knew
Ferdinand was taking advantage of his sister.
<>“He
saw a girl and two men enter a limousine and drive away. The girl was
Hilda,
and one of the men was Ferdinand … The car stopped in the city and
picked up
the pretty daughter of a cobbler; then it drove on out into the country
to the
hunting lodge in the woods.”
<>Eventually, Hilda’s
method of
transportation made people start to wonder how her family could afford
it.
<><>“When
people saw Hilda come home for a visit with her mother, as she did when
her
father was away, they would have thought Martin de Groot must be making
a great
deal of money; for Hilda rode in a beautiful English car with a
chauffeur and
footman.”
The
affair became public after
King Otto was
assassinated and Ferdinand became king.
“Hilda had two new motors and
many
magnificent jewels.” She didn’t enjoy driving her cars, however. “When
I drove
today, some people hissed at me; when I passed the cemetery, I saw a
man
digging a grave.” The sight was prophetic. The next car Hilda
rode in
was a
hearse.
<>
<>
<>
The
Man-eater
(Written:
May-June 1915)
<>
<>In The
Man-eater, Burroughs used an automobile in a most unusual way — as
the
setting for the story’s culminating action. Passing over the strange
circumstances that brought all the major characters together, the final
scene
opened one night with a chauffeur driving Mrs. Scott and her daughter
Virginia home
to the family’s Virginia mansion. A quarter mile from its destination,
the car
came to a stop. ERB, perhaps drawing from the breakdowns of his own
autos,
described how the chauffeur analyzed the problem.
“Getting
down from his seat and raising one side of the bonnet … he fussed about
between
the engine and the control board, trying first the starter and then the
horn.
‘Ah guess we-all blowed a fuse,’ he announced presently. ‘Have you
others, or
must we walk the rest of the way?’ inquired Mrs. Scott. ‘Oh, yasm, Ah
got some
right year,’ and he raised the cushion from the driver’s seat and
thrust his
hand into the box beneath. For a moment he fumbled about in search of
an extra
fuse plug.”
<>
<>As he clipped the new fuse plug
in place,
making the car ready to run again, the chauffeur noticed something
emerging
from the darkness and moving toward the car — a lion. The driver bolted
to the
side of the road, jumped a fence, and disappeared, leaving the two
women to
deal with the lion. Virginia considered their options."
“Should
she and her mother leave the machine and attempt to escape, or were
they safer
where they were? The lion could easily track them should he care to do
so after
they had left the car. On the other hand, the strange and unusual
vehicle might
be sufficient safeguard in itself to keep off a nervous jungle beast.”
<>Meanwhile, the lion
was
considering his
options as well.
“He did not like the looks of this
strange thing. What
was it?
He would investigate. The beast was beside the car now. Leisurely, he
placed a
forepaw on the running board and raised himself until his giant head
topped the
side of the tonneau.”
<>
<>Enter Dick Gordon,
courageous
hero. While
distracting the lion, he cried out asking Virginia if she knew how to
drive.
When she responded, “Yes,” Gordon commanded, “Then climb over and
drive. Drive
anywhere just as fast as you can.”
“The
girl clambered over into the driver’s seat and started the engine. With
the
whir of the starter (the lion) wheeled about with a low snarl, but in
an
instant the girl drew the speed lever back into low, pressed down on
the
accelerator, let in the clutch, and the car shot forward. Still the
lion seemed
in doubt. He took a few steps toward the car, which he could easily
reach in a
single bound.”
<>At that instant,
Gordon
distracted the
beast, allowing the two women to drive safely away.
<>
<>
<>
The Rider
(Written:
October-December 1915)
<>
<>In the European
principality of
Karlova,
the adventurous Prince Boris wanted to avoid an arranged marriage with
the
daughter of the King of nearby Margoth. His solution was to trade
places for a
week with the country’s notorious highwayman known as The Rider. The
outlaw,
dressed in the prince’s military uniform, rode in the first of many
automobiles
in the story. A French limousine carried him down a flower-strewn
boulevard into
Demia, the capital city of nearby Margoth. In the crowd along the
boulevard, the
real Prince Boris, incognito, met American Hemmington Main, who had
come to
Europe to track down love-interest Gwendolyn Bass, whose mother had
taken her
on a tour of Europe to keep Main from courting her daughter.
<>In one of those
wondrous
coincidences that
ERB used so much in his stories, Main just happened to spot the Bass
automobile
arriving in the city at the same time the Karlovian French limo drove
by.
<>
“An
automobile, a large touring car, honked noisily out of a side street
and
crossed toward the hotel entrance. Main chanced to be looking down into
the
street at the time. With an excited exclamation he half rose from his
chair.
‘There they are!’ he whispered. “The car drew up before the hotel and
stopped.
Two maids alighted, followed by a young girl and a white haired woman.”
Meanwhile,
Princess Mary of
Margoth decided
to avoid the supposed Prince of Karlova. “The open car, Stefan,” she
instructed
her aid. “The old one without the arms, and take me west on the Roman
road.”
Before leaving town, though, the princess decided to stop at the hotel
where
her American friend Gwendolyn Bass was staying.
<>Meanwhile, Prince
Boris,
incognito, hatched
a scheme to help Main hook up with Gwendolyn so that he could propose
to her.
Unfortunately, Boris wound up hijacking Princess Mary’s car instead of
the Bass
car, leading to multiple automobile scenes in the Margothian
countryside
through the remainder of the story. Below is one example.
<>
<>“Slowly
the big car wound its way up the steep grade. The gears, meshed in
second
speed, protested loudly, while the exhaust barked in sympathy through
an open
muffler. Stefan, outwardly calm, was inwardly boiling, as was the water
in the
radiator before him threatening to do. Silent, but none the less
sincere, were
the curses where with he cursed the fate which had compelled him to
drive “the
old car” up Vitza grade which the new car took in high with only a
gentle
purring.
<>“Almost
at the summit there is a curve about a projecting shoulder of rock, and
at this
point the grade is steepest. More and more slowly the old car moved
when it
reached this point — there came from the steel and aluminum lungs a few
consumptive coughs which racked the car from bumper to tail light, and
as
Stefan shifted quickly from second to low the wheels almost stopped,
and at the
same instant a horseman reined quickly into the center of the road
before them,
a leveled revolver pointing straight through the frail windshield at
the
unprotected breast of the astonished Stefan.
“One
single burst of speed and both horse and man would be ridden down. The
gears
were in low, the car was just at a standstill. Stefan pressed his foot
upon the
accelerator and let in the clutch. The car should have jumped forward
and
crushed the life from the presumptuous bandit; but it did nothing of
the sort.
Instead, it gave voice to a pitiful choking sound, and died.”
Hemmington
Main’s romantic
automobile-filled plans to find and marry Gwendolyn Bass were
successfully
concluded at the story’s end.
<>
The Oakdale Affair
January-June, 1917
<>
<>In ERB’s chronologically
challenged novella,
The Oakdale Affair, the initial event
in the three-day storyline is first revealed halfway through the second
chapter/
<> <>“Reginald
Paynter was dead. His body had been found beside the road just outside
the city
limits at midnight by a party of automobilists returning from a fishing
trip.
The skull was crushed back of the left ear. The position of the body,
as well
as the marks in the road beside it indicated that the man had been
hurled from
a rapidly moving automobile.”
<>
<>That same evening,
Abigail
Prim, the
“spinster” 19-year-old daughter of Oakdale’s prominent banker,
disappeared from
her parents’ home. The town’s citizens viewed the two events as somehow
interlinked, since Abigail and Reginald were old friends. On frequent
occasions
she had “ridden abroad in Reginald’s French roadster.” That evening,
though,
Abigail was not with Reginald. Instead, in a desperate attempt to
escape her
dreary life, she had stuffed her pockets with cash, disguised herself
as a boy,
and headed out into the adventurous world claiming to be the criminal
“Oskaloosa
Kid.” After teaming up with the philosophical drifter, Bridge, the two
witnessed a scary automobile incident.
“Bridge,
turning, saw a brilliant light flaring through the night above the
crest of the
hill they had just topped in their descent into the small valley, where
stood
the crumbling house of Squibbs. The purr of a rapidly moving motor rose
above
the rain … As the car swung onto the straight road before the house a
flash of
lightning revealed dimly the outlines of a rapidly moving touring car
with
lowered top. Just as the machine came opposite the Squibbs’ gate a
woman’s
scream mingled with the report of a pistol from the tonneau and the
watchers
upon the verandah saws a dark hulk hurled from the car, which sped on
with
undiminished speed, climbed the hill beyond and disappeared from view.
Bridge
started on a run toward the gateway, followed by the frightened Kid. In
the
ditch beside the road they found in a disheveled heap the body of a
young
woman.”
The
young woman, Hettie
Penning, survived
and joined an aggregate of characters shuffled back-and-forth
throughout the
night in various automobiles between the towns of Oakdale and Payton.
Passengers
in the crowded cars included Bridge, Abigail Prim (disguised as the
“Oskaloosa
Kid”), a gang of felonious hoboes (Dopey Charlie, Soup Face, Sky Pilot,
and The
General), Abigail’s father, Chicago Detective Dick Burton, half a dozen
sheriff
deputies, and a dozen carloads of indignant citizens looking for a
lynching.
Eventually, Miss Penning explained how some Oakdale lowlifes killed
Reginald
Paynter and threw his body out of their speeding car shortly before
they tried
to do the same to her. Other than Reginald’s “French roadster,” the
only other
specific type of car mentioned in The
Oakdale Affair is the large “touring car” used by Detective Burton
and his crew
of Chicago cops.
<>
Tarzan
the Untamed
(Written: August 1918–September
1919)
Only
one automobile appears in Tarzan the Untamed, and for
this one,
ERB specified the make. While British Colonel Capell and Lieutenant
Thompson
discussed a rescue mission to find a British pilot missing in West
Africa, “a
big Vauxhall drew up in front of the headquarters of the Second
Rhodesians.” The
vehicle carried British General Smut to a conference with Colonel
Capell.
Vauxhall Motors was then, and still is, a British maker of motor
vehicles.
<>
The
Efficiency Expert
(Written:
Sept.-Oct. 1919)
In
the summer of 1915, a flat
tire and a
beautiful woman gave Jimmy Torrance the self-esteem boost he needed to
continue
trying to make something of himself in Chicago.
The left front tire of Miss Elizabeth Compton’s car was flat.
Burroughs
explained, “There was an extra wheel on the rear of the roadster, but
it was
heavy and cumbersome, and the girl knew from experience what a dirty
job
changing a wheel is. She had just about decided to drive home on the
rim when a
young man crossed the walk from Erie Street.” Jimmy asked if he could
help her.
“It looks like a new casing,” he observed. “It would be too bad to ruin
it. If
you have a spare I will be very glad to change it for you.” After Miss
Compton
thanked him for changing the tire, Jimmy stood on the curb and watched
as she
drove away.
<>
<>Later in the story,
three
people, two cars,
and a motorcycle participate in a scene important to Jimmy Torrance’s
future.
It started when two taxis drew up side-by-side in front of a Chicago
roadhouse.
The Lizard, a pickpocket and safecracker, got out of one taxi and
joined Little
Eva, a lady of the evening, in the back seat of the other cab. Jimmy
had made
friends with both characters. After agreeing to get some “papers” that
would be
helpful to Jimmy, The Lizard got back in his cab, just as a motorcycle
policeman pulled up beside it. When The Lizard ordered the driver to
“Beat it,
bo!’ the taxicab leaped forward, accelerating rapidly. Also wanting to
avoid
the cops, Eva ordered her cab driver to, “Go on to Elmhurst, and then
come back
to the city on the St. Charles Road.”
<>
The Girl
From Hollywood
(Written:
November 1921–January 1922)
<>
<>Burroughs
characterization of
the youthful
Eva Pennington began with her impetuousness while driving a car.
“Now
the chauffeur was taking her bag and carrying it to the roadster that
she would
drive home along the wide, straight boulevard that crossed the valley —
utterly
ruining a number of perfectly good speed laws … The headlights of a
motor car
turned in at the driveway … With a rush the car topped the hill, swung
up the
driveway, and stopped at the corner of the house. A door flew open, and
the
girl leaped from the driver’s seat.”
<>
<>Her brother, Custer
Pennington,
also could
be careless behind the wheel, but for a different reason. When he had
been
drinking, he tended to swing “the roadster around the curves of the
driveway
leading down the hill a bit more rapidly than usual.” Custer next
appeared
driving the Pennington roadster in Los Angles. He had requested that it
be sent
to the city and parked in a garage for him to use the day he was
released from
jail. After first stopping to visit Grace Evans, a close family friend,
Custer
headed north to rejoin his family at their valley home.
<>
<>“Custer
found them waiting for him on the east porch as he drove up to the
ranch house.
The new freedom and the long drive over the beautiful highway through
the clear
April sunshine, with the green hills at his left and the lovely valley
spread
out upon his right hand, to some extent alleviated the depression that
had
followed the shock of his interview with Grace; and when he alighted
from the
car he seemed quite his normal self again.”
<>
<>After learning from
Custer
about his sister
Grace’s problems, Guy Evans’ drove along the same highway back to LA in
a
decidedly different state of mind<>.
“Guy Evans swept over the
broad, smooth
highway at a rate that would have won him ten days in the jail at Santa
Ana had
his course led him through that village … When he approached the
bungalow on
Circle Terrace, and saw a coupé standing at the curb, he guessed
at what it
portended; for though there were doubtless hundreds of similar cars in
the
city, there was that about this one which suggested the profession of
its
owner.” It belonged to a doctor.
<>After he learned
that movie
producer Wilson
Crumb had been the cause of Grace’s disgrace and death, Guy resolved to
kill
him. When Guy came upon Crumb standing by his broken down car one
evening, he
revenged his sister.
<>“He
rode to the mouth of Jackknife, and saw
the lights of Crumb’s car up near El Camino Largo … He rode up to where
Crumb
was attempting to crank his engine. Evidently the starter had failed to
work,
for Crumb was standing in front of the car, in the glare of the
headlights,
attempting to crank it. Guy accosted him, charged him with the murder
of Grace,
and shot him.”
<>
Marcia of the Doorstep
(Written:
April-October 1924)
<>
<>Edgar Rice
Burroughs revealed
his knowledge
of different makes and styles of automobiles in the text of Marcia
of the Doorstep, the only story
he wrote in 1924. For instance, listen to the conversation between
Marcia Sackett
and her fiancé as they enjoy a ride in the Steele Ford that his
father had
loaned him for the day.
<>“When we’re married,” Dick was saying,
“we’ll buy a classy little roadster like that maroon one that just
passed.”
<>
<>“Oh,
let’s have a Pierce,” cried Marcia, “it don’t cost any more to drive a
dream
Pierce than a dream Buick, and they are so much more satisfying.”
<>
<>“Why
not a Rolls-Royce, then?” he inquired.
<>"I
don’t care for foreign built cars,” the girl announced, as one who has
given a
subject much expert consideration.
<>“Oh,
wouldn’t it be great to be rich, Marcia,” he cried, “and be able to buy
any
kind of car you wanted?”
<>
You Lucky Girl!
(Written:
1927)
<>
<>While
no actual cars appear in
this play
that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote for his daughter Joan, the plot is
based on
competition for obtaining two car dealerships in the Midwest city of
Millidge.
Bill Mason is a 29-year-old owner of a small garage and repair shop who
wants
to purchase a local agency to sell the new Gormley Six automobile. He’s
convinced it’s “going to be the biggest selling car in this country
inside of a
year.” Bill explains to his good friend Corrie West that,
unfortunately, he doesn’t
have the $10,000 needed to invest in the agency.
<>
<>Jumping forward three years in
the play,
the audience learns that Bill and his father have not only found the
money
somewhere to buy the Gormley Six agency, but also a second car
dealership. That
brings Bill into conflict with Phil Mattis, the well-healed son of the
town’s
banker.
<>
<>Phil to Bill: “Well,
listen. You succeeded in getting the agency for the Gormley Six
away from me last year. I don’t know how you did it, but you did it.
All right,
you won that time. I don’t know where you got the money and I’m not
asking. You
seem to have taken in a lot of new capital since your father resigned
at the
bank and went into business with you, but that is neither here nor
there. What
I am up here to see you about is the Packard agency. Your father knew
that I
wanted that and just today I had a wire from the factory saying that
they were
closing negotiations with another dealer here. I know that means you.”
Bill:
“You are correct.”
Phil:
“I
want that Packard agency and I want the Gormley Six back, too. I have
my own
reason for wanting them and I can afford to buy what I want. I have
come up
here to buy those two agencies.”
Bill:
“They
are not for sale.”
At
the end of the play, the
audience learns
where the money came from to finance Bill’s car dealerships. His father
tells
Bill that Corrie West, who had since become a successful actress,
provided the
needed money and thereby became a silent partner in Mason & Mason
Automobiles.
< style="font-weight: bold;">
Calling All Cars
(Written:
June 1931)
<>
<>The appearance of the word
“cars” in this
ERB short story tips the reader off that cars play a part in the plot.
The suspense
begins late one night when Maddox, a servant in a mansion on a
Hollywood
hilltop, hears the humming of gears, indicating “a car was coming up
the hill
in second.” Unsure about the reason any car would be climbing up the
hill road
at that time of night, Maddox called the police.z
“Presently
the car came in sight, grinding slowly up the grade. Maddox could see
that it
was a dark colored sedan and that there were two people in the front
seat. The
car drew directly into the curb in front of the house and stopped … As
they got
out of the car the light from a street lamp fell upon them, revealing a
hatless
young man in grey coat and white trousers. He was about five feet ten,
and his
companion, a young woman, was perhaps five inches shorter.”
Meanwhile,
Maddox’s call to the
police drew
a response.
“From far below them, somewhere out of that vast network of
city
streets, rose faintly the weird wail of a police siren. Gradually it
rose in
volume as the car raced west on Sunset Boulevard. Presently they caught
occasional glimpses of its red spotlight as it flashed by open spaces
in the
traffic. Like the hopeless plaint of a lost soul, its raucous screech
cleft the
night.”
<>The man and woman,
who had
reached the top
of the hill in the first car, leaned over a railing in front of the
mansion and
watched the police car approach.
<>“It
flashed into view on the visible stretches of the winding canyon road
below
them — a red-eyed demon of the night, appearing and disappearing as it
roared
its shrieking way around the innumerable curves and shoulders of the
ascent. With
an expiring wail the siren suddenly went dumb. The car drew into the
curb and
three officers leaped out. Two of them walked briskly toward the Gothic
entrance, the other remained by the car.”
It
turned out that the two cars
played minor
roles in the story’s plot. For Burroughs the two motor vehicles were
simply
“literary vehicles” to get the characters to the hilltop mansion, where
the
people in both cars became involved in solving a murder mystery.
<>
Pirate
Blood
(Written: February-May 1932)
<>
<>Johnny Lafitte, the
hero of Pirate Blood, tells the story in the
first person. Although he was a star athlete in college, Johnny was a
poor
student who couldn’t find a high-paying job after graduating. Early on
in the
story he worked as a police officer. Below he gives the details of a
particular
stop he made of a speeding driver.z
“I’d
been handing out tickets on the state highway just outside town until I
almost
had writer’s cramp. I was sitting on my machine in a little hide-out on
a side
road waiting for the next victim, when a great big, flashy roadster
with the
top down streaked by at about seventy … About the only people in town
who drove
cars like that were members of that country club. And I was right. The
car was
slowing down to make the turn into the entrance to the club grounds
when I
pulled up alongside and motioned it over to the side of the road.
<>“As I
left my machine and walked toward the side of the roadster I was
reaching into
my inside pocket for my book without looking up at the driver. When I
did, I
saw it was a girl (Daisy Juke) … I was leaning close to her, my heart
full of
love, she was a thousand miles away from me — the chassis of the car
she drove
cost sixteen thousand dollars without any body … She asked me to come
and see
her, and I promised that I would; then she started up and turned up the
driveway of the country club — where I could only go as a cop. I didn’t
write
any more tickets that day.”
<>
Tarzan
and the Lion Man
(Written:
February-May 1933)
<>
<>The storyline is
structured
around a
Hollywood studio’s expedition in Africa to obtain film scenes for use
in a
“jungle movie.” The actors and crew were sent to Africa with a fleet of
28
motor vehicles to film in the Ituri Forest. Included were a generator
truck,
two sound trucks, 20 five-ton supply trucks, and five passenger cars. ERB didn’t mention much about the 23 trucks,
but one of the cars had a role in the action. Burroughs didn’t mention
the make
or type of the cars, but they must have been heavy-duty vehicles to
manage the
off-road route taken by the expedition.
The
car seen most often in the
story is the
one carrying Naomi Madison, the film’s female lead, and Rhonda Terry,
her
stand-in. The girls’ hand baggage was in their car’s backseat and a
makeup bag was
upfront with them.
Three
times a flurry of arrows
was launched
at the film company by warriors of the Bansuto tribe. During the
attacks, Naomi
Madison screamed and crouched upon the floor of her car, even fainting
once.
Rhonda Terry, however, fought back. During the first attack, she stood
with
one foot on the running board, a pistol in her hand.
.” During the second
attack,
Rhonda stepped out of the car, joining the men in all the other cars
looking
for attackers to fire at.” During a third attack, the natives rushed
Naomi and
Rhonda’s car. Again, “Naomi Madison slipped to the floor of the car.”
As a
dozen men with rifles rushed to defend the girls, “Rhonda drew her
revolver and
fired into the faces of the onrushing blacks.” The film company finally
got the
footage it needed, and the five cars were part of the “long caravan” of
vehicles that Tarzan watched heading out of Africa and back to
Hollywood.
<>The final chapter
of Tarzan and the Lion Man finds Tarzan in Hollywood a
year
after the
events earlier in the story. The city’s environment, including its many
automobiles, depressed the ape-man.
<><>“He
saw many people riding in cars or walking on the cement sidewalks and
the
suggestion of innumerable people in the crowded, close built shops and
residences; and he felt more alone than he ever had before in all his
life.”
<>When a couple of
Hollywood
troublemakers
invited him to go to a party with them, the curious Tarzan agreed. He
thought
the circuitous route they were taking to the party seemed strange, but
he
didn’t realize he was about to crash a party with them.
<>“On a
side street near Franklin they climbed into a flashy roadster. Brouke
drove
west a few blocks on Franklin and then turned up a narrow street that
wound
into the hills. Presently they came to the end of the street. ‘Hell!’
muttered
Brouke and turned the car around. He turned into another street and
followed
that a few blocks; then he turned back toward Franklin. On a side
street in an
otherwise quiet neighborhood they sighted a brilliantly lighted house
in front
of which several cars were parked; laughter and the sounds of radio
music were
coming from an open window. ‘This looks like the place,’ said Reece.
‘It is,’
said Brouke with a grin, and drew up at the curb.”
When
he heard the sirens,
Tarzan decided
he’d forego riding back to town in a police car. Instead, he jumped out
an
upstairs window into a tree and disappeared.
<>
Tarzan
and the Lost Empire
(Written:
March-May 1928)
<>
<>A look back at a
humorous
reference to
contemporary automobiles is a good way to conclude this study of cars
in ERB’s
fiction. Since the “lost cities” that Tarzan encountered were
inevitably frozen
in time long before the internal combustion engine was invented, 20th
century automobiles were never found there. In fact, citizens of those
lost
cities couldn’t even conceive of modern cars, as Erich von Harben
discovered in
Tarzan and the Lost Empire.
<>
<>Obviously, there
were no
motorized vehicles
in Castrum Mare, a Roman city that had not advanced technologically in
the two
millennia since it was founded in a secluded location in Central
Africa.
However, Burroughs obviously had some fun when he had his 20th
century character, Erich von Harben, try to explain the characteristics
of the
modern automobile. During a conversation while he and Mallius Lepus
were riding
on a slave-carried litter, von Harben told his friend that many changes
had
occurred in modern Rome. Lepus responded,
“But certainly that could
have been
no great change in the style of litters, and I can’t believe that the
patricians have ceased to use them.” Von Harben then struggled to
describe
motorized vehicles to the incredulous Roman. Some excerpts from that
conversation:
Erich:
“Their
litters travel on wheels now.”
Mallius:
“Incredible!
It would be torture to bump over the rough pavement and
country roads on the great wooded wheels of ox-carts.”
Erich:
“The
city pavements are smooth today and the countryside is cut in all
directions by
wide, level highways over which the litters of the modern citizens of
Rome roll
at great speeds with small wheels with soft tires.”
Mallius:
“I
warrant you that there be no litters in all Rome that move at
greater speed than this … better than eighty-five hundred paces an
hour.”
Erich:
“Fifty
thousand paces an hour is nothing unusual for the wheeled litters of
today. We
call them automobiles.”
Mallius:
“You are
going to be a great success. Tell (the guests of Septimus
Favonius) that there be litter-carriers
in Rome today who can run fifty thousand paces in an hour and they will
acclaim
you the greatest entertainer as well as the great liar Castrum Mare has
ever
seen.”
Erich:
“I
never said that there were litter-bearers who could run fifty-thousand
paces an
hour.”
Mallius:
“But did
you not assure me that the litters traveled that fast? Perhaps
the litters of today are carried by horses. Where are the horses that
can run
fifty thousand paces in an hour?”
Erich:
“The
litters are neither carried nor drawn by horses or men, Mallius.”
Mallius:
“They fly
then, I presume. By Hercules, you must tell this all over
again to Septimus Favonius. I promise you that he will love you.”
ERB poses with his new 1937 Packard on the docks at Vancouver, Canada.
In early October 1938, Burroughs and his wife sailed from
Honolulu to
Vancouver to pickup the new automobile waiting for them there.
In an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on October 7,
1938, ERB indicated that he and his wife
would "tour the coast" as they drove the new Packard to their home in
Southern California.
—
the end —
