Mercury might use it to visit Vulcan, but he would never go far from the shop.
"As for conditions here on earth, why should a young woman go riding with a man whose hands, arms, and attention are entirely taken up with wheels, levers, and oil-cups?
He can't even press her foot without running the risk of stopping the machine by releasing some clutch; if he moves his knees a hair's-breadth in her direction it does something to the mechanism; if he looks her way they are into the ditch; if she attempts to kiss him his goggles prevent; his sighs are lost in the muffler and hers in the exhaust; nothing but dire disaster will bring an automobile courtship to a happy termination; as long as the machine goes love-making is quite out of the question.
"Dobbin, dear old secretive Dobbin, what difference does it make to you whether you feel the guiding hand or not?
You know when the courtship begins, the brisk drives about town to all points of interest, to the pond, the poorhouse, and the cemetery; you know how the courtship progresses, the long drives in the country, the idling along untravelled roads and woodland ways, the moonlight nights and misty meadows; you know when your stops to nibble by the wayside will not be noticed, and you alone know when it is time to get the young couple home; you know, alas! when the courtship--blissful period of loitering for you--is ended and when the marriage is made, by the tighter rein, the sharper word, and the occasional swish of the whip.

Ah, Dobbin, you and I--" The Professor was becoming indiscreet.
"What do you know about love-making, Professor ?" "My dear fellow, it is the province of learning to know everything and practise nothing." "But Dobbin--" "We all have had our Dobbins." For some miles the road out of Erie was soft, dusty, narrow, and poor--by no means fit for the proposed Erie-Buffalo race.

About fifteen miles out there is a sharp turn to the left and down a steep incline with a ravine and stream below on the right,--a dangerous turn at twenty miles an hour, to say nothing of forty or fifty.
There is nothing to indicate that the road drops so suddenly after making the turn, and we were bowling along at top speed; a wagon coming around the corner threw us well to the outside, so that the margin of safety was reduced to a minimum, even if the turn were an easy one.
As we swung around the corner well over to the edge of the ravine, we saw the grade we had to make.

Nothing but a succession of small rain gullies in the road saved us from going down the bank.

By so steering as to drop the skidding wheels on the outside into each gully, the sliding of the machine received a series of violent checks and we missed the brink of the ravine by a few inches.
A layman in the Professor's place would have jumped; but he, good man, looked upon his escape as one of the incidents of automobile travel.
"When I accepted your invitation, my dear fellow, I expected something beyond the ordinary.