Can I Help You, Madam?

ANY woman who thinks that chivalry is dead, that men are prone of late to assume a ‘Let-Georgiana-do-it’ attitude, has but to begin a little job of tinkering along some line popularly regarded as ‘ no woman’s job.’ She will find that the world is still peopled with eager, unselfish knights-errant. Noble Lohengrins and bold Sir Launcelots will sprint to her side at her first tink.

This morning I decided to undertake a bit of work on the car — merely to replace a lost bolt in the license plate, which neither my husband nor the garage-man found time to do. Simple? Mais, non! First of all, I must procure a new bolt for the plate, and so walked into a hardware store and asked for one. The young salesman was aghast over my notion that any bolt would do.

‘You better bring the plate in here, or the bolt you have in it yet. Then I can give you the exact fit.’

So I went to the garage, took out the tool case, and was proceeding to detach the license plate when the garage-man interposed.

‘Want any help?’ he asked sociably, and without waiting for my reply took the screwdriver out of my hand and deftly loosened the bolt , with the aid of a wrench and another tool or two he found in the kit.

‘There, now you can get an exact match in no time.’

I went back to the hardware store. The clerk, after careful measuring, selected five cents’ worth of bolts which he considered even better than the kind originally used, because they had a snugger fit in the spring-washer affair that went with them, as he carefully pointed out to me. He bowed me out, with an air that plainly defied me to find them otherwise, before turning to his next customer.

Now the thin metal of the license plate made a most annoying jingle whenever we went over bumps, and I therefore decided that while the plate was off would be a good time to add the board-backing which my husband had been contemplating.

As I had it along with me, I went to the building where my husband has an office. Just inside, I met the head janitor of the place, who, spying the plate, observed sociably, ‘Have to have a license to walk these days!’

I started to explain about the board, whereupon he appropriated the plate.

‘Let’s see. I’ve got just the right kind of a board for that, I’m sure.’ And off he darted.

He painstakingly sawed a board into a neat fit, screwed the plate to it in eight different places, examined his work critically, and handed it back with a flourish. ‘Now she won’t jingle,’ he declared, and went off.

I started back to the garage, but noticed that the janitor had forgotten to drill the holes through the board for the bolts that must fasten the plate to the license rod. So I went up to the office, and finding no one there, congratulated myself that at last I could do a little work on the job. But I had scarcely found the drill I meant to use, when my husband came in.

‘Well, well, Keturah, at that license tag, are you? Got it on a board, too? Here, let’s see that drill a minute. You want a larger one than that.’

And without further ado, he changed the drills and went to work. After several minutes of careful measuring and drilling, he handed the plate back with the complacent remark: ‘There, run along with it. And if you can’t put it back, I’ll do it. when I get around to it. I’m busy now.’ And off he toddled.

The man who keeps the cigar and confectionery store in the building was just starting off to the bank, or lunch, when I stepped out of the elevator. He spied the plate, asked if I was off for a ride, and when I started to explain, holding out the contraption to show what had been done, he observed, —

‘No, that’s not the right way to fasten the plate to the board. Those screws will work out in no time. Now if you had a couple of bolts in the sides — Good. Those are just the thing.’

He gobbled on to the two extra ones the boy had given me, when I meekly produced them. He went back into his shop, to his pipe-repairing stand, drilled a hole in each side through metal and board, put the bolts through, screwed on the nuts, cut off the extra length of bolt, hammered the ends flat for rivets, looked it all over appreciatively, and handed it back with a proud: ‘There, missus. Now you can ride and ride, and that board and plate will stick together as long as you need a license, even though everyone of Jim’s eight screws drop out.’ And he turned away to wait on a customer before starting out again.

I sneaked into the garage, rejoiced to find the garage-men all busy. I noiselessly got out the tool case, fitted the plate in place on the bracket, and had just started screwing in the first bolt, when suddenly a man crawled out from under his car two stalls away, and with a ‘Can I help you, madam?’ took screwdriver, bolts, plate, and everything away from me and went to work.

To complete it to his satisfaction, he brought a wrench and other paraphernalia from his own kit. Ere long, with the flair of one conscious of successfully performing a deed of unselfish kindness, he stepped back to scrutinize his work, pronounced it good, and crawled back under his car.

‘Well, well, Keturah,’ laughed my husband, when he spied the licenseplate in place. ‘Got it on, after all?’

‘No, I just started it. A nice, kind gentleman finished it for me.’