The man stared down at us in astonishment.
He could not believe his eyes—at a speed of over sixty miles an hour not to have shaken off this antiquated rattletrap!
He glanced at his speedometer in bewilderment—there must be something wrong with the thing.
He opened her out.
The two cars were now racing side by side along the straight road.
After a few hundred yards a lorry came clattering up from the opposite direction.
The Buick had to drop back behind us to let it pass.
No sooner was he" alongside again than a motor-hearse swept into view, wreath-ribbons trailing in the wind; once again he had to give way.
Thereafter the course lay open.
In the meantime the man at the wheel had lost his arrogance; annoyed, lips compressed, he sat there leaning forward—the racing fever had got him and now his whole life depended on not being outdone by our little mongrel.
We, on the other hand, sat apparently unmoved in our seats.
For us the Buick simply did not exist.
Koster kept his eyes calmly fixed on the road; Lenz, though a bundle of excitement, took out a newspaper as if be had nothing better to do than just read.
A few minutes later Koster gave us a wink.
Imperceptibly Karl slackened speed and the Buick came slowly up.
Its broad gleaming mudguards urged past us. The exhaust sent a blast of blue smoke into our faces.
Little by little he gained on us—twenty yards—then, as we had expected, red and perspiring but happy, the face of the owner showed in the window and grinned open triumph.
He thought he had won.
But he could not leave it at that; he could not forgo his revenge. He waved us on—waved nonchalantly, like a victor.
"Otto," said Lenz warningly.
But he had no need to speak; at that moment Karl made one bound.
The compressor shrieked.
And suddenly the waving hand at the window disappeared—for Karl had accepted the invitation; he came.
He came steadily, until at last we had recovered the lost ground; then for the first time we took notice of the stranger.
In innocent inquiry we looked to the man at the wheel, as if to ask why he had signalled.
But he kept his eyes rigidly turned away; and Karl, the triumphant guttersnipe, stiff with dirt, flapping mudguards, drew away at top speed.
"Well done, Otto," said Lenz to Koster. "There's one man won't enjoy his supper this evening."
The chases were the reason we did not change Karl's body.
He had only to show himself on the road for someone to want to take a rise out of him.
To other cars he was as a lame crow to a pack of hungry cats.
Even the most peace-loving family coach felt incited to pass him; at the sight of such an old rattletrap dancing now before, now behind them, even the most staid of middle-aged beavers would be seized with racing-fever.
For who was to know that within that ridiculous body pulsed the great heart of a racer?
Lenz maintained that Karl had an educative effect; he taught folk a proper respect for creative talent, that always lurks under ap unprepossessing exterior.
At least, so said Lenz—who also said of himself that he was the last of the romantics.
We pulled up in front of a little inn and got out of the car.
The evening was beautiful and calm.
The troughs of the furrows in the new-ploughed fields glowed purple; the ridges were brown and burning gold.
Great clouds, like flamingoes, floated in the apple-green sky, and slender in the midst of them lay the sickle of the waxing moon.
Distressfully bare still, yet full of the promise of bud, a hazel bough held the evening and dream in its arms.
From the inn issued a smell of frying liver. Onions, too.
Our hearts swelled.
Lenz followed the smell indoors.
Satisfied, he came back.
"You ought to see the chips!
The best will be gone if you're not quick."
At that moment a car came humming along.
We looked.
It was the Buick.
With a sharp jolt it stopped beside Karl.
"Hoopla!" said Lenz.