The stout way of the jovial Mr. Jago to a tavern was ended by a guttersnipe cutting in.

"Mr. J, Mr J! You won't ever believe what fun has happened!" said the cheerful, scruffy faced boy so excited he had a hard time staying in one place.

"Just try to behave yourself, Lil' jumping guenon lad", Mr. Jago scolded, as gentlefolk passing stared at them for long. Chatting with a guttersnipe in the middle of a bright day, he, a refined gentleman? The boy, Binky he was called, stretched out his little black hand. Jago grunted, acted as if he was getting visibly irritated, but dug up a twopence coin out of his money wallet.

"Oh well, there's a dime for you, you scoundrel and a galoot", he exclaimed loudly, but winked his eye at the boy. Mr. Jago might be externally a gentleman amongst gentlemen, but truly posh, never. The boy hid the coin in his pocket and whispered a secret in the reddened ear of this crouching actor: at the harbour someone brave could now make a good deal on an automobile – said to be a German one, painted electric blue.

Professor Litefoot had found time in his life to be acquainted with a wide range of men. One was wise, another one handsome, and both imagined to make an impression with their boasting.

Perhaps during the University years, the self-important classmate Sibelius Crow had stimulated his intellect, but was he a good man? Did he treat others with kindness, or did he concern people, who he deemed untalented and insignificant, in contempt? The Professor himself might once have been just as arrogant, but he grew up, Sibelius did not.

And how about the famous playwright, Mr. Oscar Wilde? They had met by happenstance in the bohemian circles for gentlemen, and had been attracted to each other's intellect. But Mr. Wilde was condescending man, spiky and cruel when he wanted, and too trusting of the liberating effect of his physical elegance. Professor Litefoot was too old to stand youthful abruptness.

But Mr. Henry Gordon Jago wasn't excessively like either, not obnoxiously cheeky nor Adonis. But he inhabited one of the most sinful male personality flaws imaginable – ergo, the love for automobiles, and other continuations of one's manhood.

"Oh, for the love of our Lord, what is with you, Henry", shook Professor Litefoot his head after seeing the travesty of the wagon his friend had been tinkering with feverish passion ever since he had bought it in shady circumstances from a Dutch junk dealer.

"Where do you think you'll be driving that? Even the crows and the pigeons will laugh at you, and you'll end up in jail."

"Well, not downtown surely, no", Jago cleared, but thought it over for a moment and added: "Unless for promotion. Isn't that just capital? No other theatre has devised a horseless carriage for advertising purposes."

"You only wish to be allowed to drive around and around again", sniffed Litefoot.

"And is that so wrongly desired, eh?

"Not otherwise, but I know the type of man you are Jago – you'll certainly break your own leg, if it gave you a good reputation."

"Now you're exaggerating, Professor," said Jago, mildly offended. Though further excusing would undoubtedly lead to a pseudologia fantastica in his part, as Mr. Jago truly got all his gratification from the audience. He wouldn't be an actor by trade otherwise, now would he?

Mr. Jago's automobile putted through the road, jingling as it raced and bobbed from side to side like a tinkling wind chime. Professor Litefoot hold on the door frame in terror.

"Stop, in the name of the Lord, I won't stand this whisking anymore", the Professor demanded, but to no avail, Jago didn't make as much as sign to comply. On the contrary, he might have hastened, the dreaded Devil!

"There, there Litefoot!" Jago laughed, "Shouldn't a fine pathologist, like yourself, own more steadfast nerves than that?"

"Corpses don't hustle! You're driving like a madman", Litefoot whined, but hold on and was only cursing it, why, why had he agreed to this even after the fact, that Mr. Jago had been granted three tickets from the patrol police for scaring the horses.

His old man had been fitted to a hospital a long time ago, and so Mr. Jago's poor mother had alone taken care of her kids. She washed, did laundry and kissed her children affectionately, even though she had money for nothing, not for shoes nor catechism for the Sunday school. It might have played a part in why a repute and mammon had later become so important in Jago's life. Things you're not blessed with in childhood, you'll forever crave for, or isn't it so?

Guess one ventures, that vehemence must be counted as a sin, but look what ambition has brought – now Jago had the fortune and property, fine accommodations, a theatre, and a German automobile. He drove it and felt the blood rushing through his veins. He turned towards Litefoot proudly.

"I can teach you in the wheel, if you so wish", he said. The Professor looked at him under his frowned brows.

"Not by any means I will be driving, it is vulgar," he scoffed, and surely didn't mean to hurt his friend's feelings. The Professor was only irritated and nauseated because of the bumpy travel, the rudeness stemmed from it. But it blackened the mood regardless. Mr. Jago hadn't thought of it ever before, but a truly rich man would never sink so low to drive himself, or course not.

Professor Litefoot realized it almost immediately he had vomited out a true mother of all blunders. Sure, he had, from the very beginnings of their friendship, had a habit to jab his friend in all well-intentions, sometimes feisty even, but now his words had aligned in altogether wrong order.

"Oh Henry, please forgive me. I didn't consider what I said, I was beastly and rude."

"Rude?" Oh no, why should you care about me, I'm just a buffoon. How did you put it? Even the crows and the pigeons will laugh at this common impresario", Jago sniffed, with a great sense melodrama, squeezing the wheel as his knuckles turned white.

"You know that I didn't mean it like that!"

"How else I should understand it? Tell me, what do you see this vulgar old fellow, then?"

Jago's dark profile formed against the light. Litefoot weighted his answer.

"Darling… you are the man, who makes me a better person", said Litefot, and hoped Jago would take it seriously, as he had never loved anyone, like you love somebody for real, till Mr. Jago.

The barmaid, Miss Ellie Higson, guessed from the simple jolt of the pub cattle, that Mr. Jago and Professor Litefoot had just stepped into the tavern.

"Ellie! Be a dear, and drinks all around!" Jago yelled being barely out of the doorway. Drunkards hollered hurray, hurray, somebody stand on a table and another hang from the chain of the oil-lamp.

"Oi!" Ellie whacked some airhead upon his forehead with her broom, before she turned toward this sweet theatre owner, who was well famed in all public houses of London, "Mr. J, are you sure you can afford everything? The owner, well, thinks I shouldn't allow you to add a penny to your tab."

"Don't worry about it, dearie, it's the Professor's treat", Jago smiled, to which Ellie rised her eyebrow. Litefoot seemed conciliatory and agreeable, so a round came and around it went. Litefoot tipped a while shilling in Ellie's apron pocket.

"May I ask, Professor, what's the occasion?"

"Well, let say, that Henry has just taken my virginity."

"I beg your pardon?"

The gentlemen laughed in their beer-headedness so full-bodied and long, that Ellie considered, just for a brief moment, if she should refuse any further servings. Mr. Jago wiped tears of joy off the corners of his eyes.

"Good Professor means, that he's never before driven a German automobile! But after a while, with the assistance of Yours Truly, it flowed like from an old auteur!"

"What thereof, I still need to learn how to boldly grab the gearstick", the Professor said and the gentlemen hummed in a way, that they supposedly believed Ellie to be both blind and dim.

On his side, dressed in his nightdress, Mr. Jago turned the pages of an exciting Jules Verne –novel. Flying gadgets, space apparatus, submarines!

"Hear me out Litefoot, do you think, that in the year of 2050, even automobiles will fly?" he asked. The Professor shook his head.

"Ow. Well, maybe not. Perhaps it's too utopian."

"What benefit there'd be in a flying automobile? I'd think they'd invent wholly new devices for that", said Litefoot, running the scruff hairs on his beloved neck through his fingers. The old theatreman grunted like a dog and turned on his back. Behind the book they kissed.

"How long do you reckon the foolishness of people will last?" Jago asked. Litefoot gave it a careful reflection. You'd be allowed to drive an automobile in downtown London, before being allowed to love, without a crime. But maybe the wisdom in mankind will condense, and hopefully we don't have to wait over one and a half century for it.

FIN

Illustration by me: art/Driver-s-lesson-588510314