At Ontario--the towns were as numerous as they were prosperous--I feared another and final episode. A Ford car that was passing slowed down to offer me assistance, and putting Lizzie in "free engine" I hung on to his hoodstays with my right arm as a tow-rope. This lasted for ten miles, but I could stand it no longer; my arms were stiff and aching with the uneven strain. I thanked my benefactor and let go.
The remaining twenty miles into Los Angeles were endured and accomplished under our own power at about eight miles an hour. The attention I attracted was considerable. Hundreds upon hundreds of cars, buses, and motor-cycles passed, hurrying here and there, their tyres making a continuous low hum on the concrete road. Luxury, wealth, and happiness abounded on every hand. No greater antithesis to the aching void of the desert back behind the mountains could be imagined.
Every house was a picture, a model of cleanliness and homeliness. The art of building bungalows is reduced in California to the irreducible. It is amazing to see the variety of design and the characteristic beauty of them all. They made the modern English bungalows of my memory seem like enlarged dog-kennels by comparison.
At five o'clock in the afternoon we rattled into Los Angeles, the New York of the Far West. Lizzie's clatter rose above the noise of the trolley cars that thronged the busy streets. Here at last was the long-sought-for goal--the goal that for nearly three months had urged me westward! And my steed? Poor Lizzie, she cried aloud for a respite from the long, weary journey!
Had I known where the Henderson Agency was I could not have found my way there quicker. It seemed as if Lizzie's instincts had taken her there just as a lost cat, transported hundreds of miles from home, slowly, painfully and perseveringly drags its tired body back again.
A quarter of an hour later I was sailing in a side-car towards the "Clark Hotel." That was where my hotel at Santa Fé had recommended me to go and had forwarded my baggage.
We drew up at the door of a palatial establishment--the "posh" hotel of Los Angeles. Once again, after many a long day, my knees began to quake. Brushing by the magnificent door-porter, I swung into the luxurious lounge. Afternoon tea was just finishing. I strolled across to the reception desk, trying hard to maintain an air of complete innocence as regards my personal appearance. I endeavoured to assume an attitude of perfect congruity with my surroundings.