Be careful when encouraging your offsring to get involved in your hobby.

[gritineye]

The Sad Story of a Motor Fan

 

H. A. Field

 

Young Ethelred was only three

Or somewhere thereabouts, when he

Began to show in divers ways

The early stages of the craze

For learning the particulars

Of motor-bikes and motor-cars.

He started with a little book

To enter numbers which he took,

And, though his mother often said,

‘Now, do be careful, Ethelred;

Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do

If anything runs over you?’

(Which Ethelred could hardly know,

And sometimes crossly told her so),

It didn’t check his zeal a bit,

But rather seemed to foster it;

Indeed it would astonish you

To hear of all the things he knew.

He guessed the make (and got it right)

Of every car that came in sight,

And knew as well its m.p.g.,

Its m.p.h. and £.s.d.,

What gears it had, what brakes, and what –

In short he knew an awful lot.

 

Now, when a boy thinks day and night

Of motor-cars with all his might

He gets affected in the head,

And so it was with Ethelred.

He called himself a ‘Packford Eight’

And wore a little number-plate

Attached behind with bits of string,

He wound and cranked like anything,

And buzzed and rumbled ever so

Before he got himself to go.

He went about on all his fours,

And usually, to get indoors,

He pressed a button, then reversed,

And went in slowly, backmost first.

 

He took long drinks from mug and cup

To fill his radiator up

Before he started out for school

(‘It kept,’ he said, ‘his engine cool’);

And when he got to school he tried

To park himself all day outside,

At which he Head became irate

And caned him on his number-plate.

 

So week by week he grew more like

A motor-car or motor-bike,

Until one day an oily smell

Hung round him, and he wasn’t well.

‘That’s odd,’ he said; ‘I wonder what

Has caused the sudden pains I’ve got.

No motor gets an aching tum

Through taking in petroleum.’

With that he cranked himself, but no,

He couldn’t get himself to go,

But merely buzzed a bit inside,

Then gave a faint chug-chug and died.

 

Now, since his petrol-tank was full,

They labelled him ‘Inflammable,’

And wisely saw to it that he

Was buried safely out at sea.

So, if any time your fish

Should taste a trifle oilyish,

You’ll know that fish has lately fed

On what remains of Ethelred.

 

 

H. A. Field contributed several items to Punch from 1924 to 1931.

[N.O.S.]

Just wonderful. I'm going to have a shower and see if I can't wash off some of this olive drab before it's too late.

[abn deuce]

You may rub and scrub but its too late the O.D. stain has gone to the bone.