He sprang courageously out of bed and
rushed to the window. And it so happened that he caught the earthquake
in the very act of flight. It was one of the new cars of the Five Towns
Electric Traction Company, Limited, guaranteed to carry fifty-two
passengers. The bumping was due to the fact that the driver, by a too
violent application of the brake, had changed the form of two of its
wheels from circular to oval. Such accidents do happen, even to the
newest cars, and the inhabitants of the Five Towns laugh when they hear
a bumpy car as they laugh at _Charley's Aunt_. The car shot past,
flashing sparks from its overhead wire and flaming red and green lights
of warning, and vanished down the main thoroughfare. And gradually the
ewer and basin ceased their colloquy. The night being the night of the
29th December, and exceedingly cold, Mr Cowlishaw went back to bed.
"Well," he muttered, "this is a bit thick, this is!" (They use such
language in cathedral towns.) "However, let's hope it's the last."
It was not the last. Exactly, it was the last but twenty-three.
Regularly at intervals of five minutes the Five Towns Electric Traction
Company, Limited, sent one of their dreadful engines down the street,
apparently with the object of disintegrating all the real property in
the neighbourhood into its original bricks.
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