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Authors: Paul Gallico
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the then free world as well, was influenced by the fact that Felicity French, the daughter of the Admiral commanding the Naval Base at Gibraltar, had met an unknown, impoverished and unspectacular Captain of Artillery who was further handicapped by holding down the doubtful post of Officer in Charge of Apes.
Yet it is true that the threads of life twist, turn, cross and knot sometimes seemingly so unconnected with events they are due to affect that it is not even possible to trace them back. The fact remains that Felicity, who was a good driver and thoughtful and polite as well, set in motion a train of consequences when she came close to knocking down an individual, a Gibraltarian by the name of Alfonso T. Ramirez, with the fender of her car.
Entering Main Street from Library Street on her way back to the Mount, she was only half-looking where she was going and not at all thinking what she was doing. Her mind was taken up with the young man she had met, the quality of his smile and the charm of his concentration on and affection for some rather nasty brutes.
And thus she came to within a hair’s breadth of running down the man named Ramirez who was a third of the way across the street within a safety area where it was neither legal nor sporting to kill a pedestrian. All rights of the situation belonged to Ramirez.
Young and healthy, Felicity’s reflexes were quick enough. She tramped on the brakes and twisted the wheel hard right and the strange-looking little man with the thick-lensed spectacles and the en brosse, short, stand-up haircut which so ill became his squat dumpy figure, felt no more than the breeze of her left fender passing his person.
Because she was so frightened of what she had almost done Felicity cried out involuntarily, “Oh, why don’t you look where you’re going?”
Then she realized that it was all her fault and that not only had she been driving dangerously but had been inexcusably rude, and she cried contritely, “Oh dear me, I am so sorry, it was all my fault.”
Felicity had jarred the car to a halt midway on the crossing so that the individual she had so nearly erased was standing peering in at her, his face white and then flushed, level with her even though she was sitting down. Behind his thick lenses his eyes were pale and angry. His mouth was shaped like the small letter “o”.
The awful thing was that it didn’t seem to be able to give vent to his indignation. Whatever was bottled up inside of him, fright or wrath—he couldn’t get it out. He swelled up like a balloon, the little “o” of his mouth working furiously and silently. Felicity thought suddenly of the grotesque figure in the Michelin tire advertisements and the relief from panic led her to commit another unintentional rudeness.
She couldn’t help herself; she giggled.
There was no point in remaining there for ever on the cross walk, traffic piling up behind her, so she tittered nervously, said once again, “I’m sorry,” and drove on, leaving behind her a vain and misanthropic little man swollen by sufficient cubic centimetres of superiority complex to fly a dirigible, who had been laughed at by a girl of an alien race.
For Felicity it was an episode quickly forgotten, for Mr. Ramirez it was the beginning of an unfortunate day of humiliations, the end of which was to confirm him as an implacable enemy of Great Britain and all her people.
Arrived home at the flower-trellised Georgian mansion which served as the Navy’s home for its Flag Officer at Gibraltar, Felicity abandoned her car in the gravel forecourt and went banging happily through the house with all the joy and energy of her twenty-two years.
Eventually her ebullience washed over her mother, who was working on a piece of tapestry by the big picture window in the drawing-room that overlooked the sea and the dockyard. Lady French had started her first piece of tapestry at the time she had married young Lieutenant French, as an occupation
Yet it is true that the threads of life twist, turn, cross and knot sometimes seemingly so unconnected with events they are due to affect that it is not even possible to trace them back. The fact remains that Felicity, who was a good driver and thoughtful and polite as well, set in motion a train of consequences when she came close to knocking down an individual, a Gibraltarian by the name of Alfonso T. Ramirez, with the fender of her car.
Entering Main Street from Library Street on her way back to the Mount, she was only half-looking where she was going and not at all thinking what she was doing. Her mind was taken up with the young man she had met, the quality of his smile and the charm of his concentration on and affection for some rather nasty brutes.
And thus she came to within a hair’s breadth of running down the man named Ramirez who was a third of the way across the street within a safety area where it was neither legal nor sporting to kill a pedestrian. All rights of the situation belonged to Ramirez.
Young and healthy, Felicity’s reflexes were quick enough. She tramped on the brakes and twisted the wheel hard right and the strange-looking little man with the thick-lensed spectacles and the en brosse, short, stand-up haircut which so ill became his squat dumpy figure, felt no more than the breeze of her left fender passing his person.
Because she was so frightened of what she had almost done Felicity cried out involuntarily, “Oh, why don’t you look where you’re going?”
Then she realized that it was all her fault and that not only had she been driving dangerously but had been inexcusably rude, and she cried contritely, “Oh dear me, I am so sorry, it was all my fault.”
Felicity had jarred the car to a halt midway on the crossing so that the individual she had so nearly erased was standing peering in at her, his face white and then flushed, level with her even though she was sitting down. Behind his thick lenses his eyes were pale and angry. His mouth was shaped like the small letter “o”.
The awful thing was that it didn’t seem to be able to give vent to his indignation. Whatever was bottled up inside of him, fright or wrath—he couldn’t get it out. He swelled up like a balloon, the little “o” of his mouth working furiously and silently. Felicity thought suddenly of the grotesque figure in the Michelin tire advertisements and the relief from panic led her to commit another unintentional rudeness.
She couldn’t help herself; she giggled.
There was no point in remaining there for ever on the cross walk, traffic piling up behind her, so she tittered nervously, said once again, “I’m sorry,” and drove on, leaving behind her a vain and misanthropic little man swollen by sufficient cubic centimetres of superiority complex to fly a dirigible, who had been laughed at by a girl of an alien race.
For Felicity it was an episode quickly forgotten, for Mr. Ramirez it was the beginning of an unfortunate day of humiliations, the end of which was to confirm him as an implacable enemy of Great Britain and all her people.
Arrived home at the flower-trellised Georgian mansion which served as the Navy’s home for its Flag Officer at Gibraltar, Felicity abandoned her car in the gravel forecourt and went banging happily through the house with all the joy and energy of her twenty-two years.
Eventually her ebullience washed over her mother, who was working on a piece of tapestry by the big picture window in the drawing-room that overlooked the sea and the dockyard. Lady French had started her first piece of tapestry at the time she had married young Lieutenant French, as an occupation
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