Frolic of His Own Read Online Free PDF

touching a wire from the coil to the positive post on the battery.
    â€”I believe that’s what they call hot wiring. We constantly have reports of cars stolen that way, please go on.
    â€”This is my car Mister Gribble.
    â€”Oh yes, yes I didn’t mean . . .
    â€”The car was in Park. I touched the wire, the engine started, it slipped into Drive and ran over me.
    â€”I see. Then we assume you must have been standing in front of the car? Why were you standing in front of the car, Mister Crease.
    â€”Because there was a mud puddle beside the car Mister Gribble, and I felt it wise not to risk the combination of water and electricity. But all this is irrelevant isn’t it. The insurance covers the car’s owner, doesn’t it?
    â€”But I understand you are the owner.
    â€”I am also the victim Mister Gribble. Now I believe that the usual course would be for the owner’s insurance to pursue the driver, but . . .
    â€”But I understand no one was driving it.
    â€”Which I suppose would leave you the alternative of suing the maker for product liability? It slipped from Park into Drive of its own accord didn’t it? If it had been in Drive at the outset it wouldn’t have started at all. Res ipsa loquitur Mister Gribble, as clear as the chandelier falling on your head.
    â€”Yes well it might be a little difficult, if we could dig up some similar cases and we’d need to examine the car, wouldn’t we.
    â€”Examine the car of course, I only want justice after all.
    â€”It’s garaged at your, at the place of the accident I can’t find the, what kind of car is it.
    â€”Sosumi.
    â€”I’m being quite serious Mister Crease.
    â€”So am I! It’s a Japanese car, a Sosumi.
    â€”Oh. Oh dear, yes I’m sorry, it’s so hard to keep track of them all nowdays. We had a whole family killed last week in an Isuyu and I made a similar error. I think we’ve covered all the preliminaries Mister Crease, I don’t want to tire you. You’ll hear from us promptly, I don’t think there should be any problem about your hospital bills here and I may even be able to squeeze in your television rental without anybody noticing, no sir. Our only problem now is getting you the very best care, if you’ll just sign this right here at the bottom and we’ll have you up in no time ready to go out and, here’s a pen . . .
    â€”And play baseball?
    â€”Right at the bottom there yes, just a formality.
    â€”Quite a lengthy formality, Mister Gribble. I don’t sign things I haven’t read.
    â€”Oh, if you, go right ahead. I just didn’t want to take up your time, I saw the supper cart in the hall and I think you have quite a surprise coming. I’ll just read the newspapers here while you . . .
    â€”You’d better just leave it with me, some other things I’ve got to take care of first, those papers right there on the night table, if you’ll hand them to me?
    â€”This? It looks like something legal, I should have guessed. You’re a lawyer, Mister Crease?
    â€”Thank you. No, I dabble in it, Mister Gribble, I only dabble. Good night.
    â€”You only dabble, do you? came from behind the curtain over eager revelations of a six car collision on Route 4. —Like a little dab of that myself, that was some hot number.
    â€”Be quiet.
    â€”A little dab’ll do you, a little dab’ll . . .
    â€”Shut up! and he settled back into the pillows, squaring his glasses as best he could, managing some sagging measure of dignity commensurate with the pages before him. And so we may as well begin this sad story with the document that has set things off or, better, that merely paced the events that follow, spattered as it was all over the newspapers, since it had nothing directly to do with them, much less its remote participants, distant in every way but the historic embrace of the civil law