It was eight o'clock at night, but Gus
Wilson and Joe Clark, proprietors of the Model Garage, were still at work.
Gus the mechanic of the firm, was putting the finishing touches on a car
he had promised to deliver in the morning to a man who was starting on a
vacation tour, and Joe, who ordinarily held up his end of the partnership
by taking care of the office work only, had been forced by the midsummer
rush of repair jobs to roll up his sleeves and become, for the time being,
a mechanic's helper.
A smart touring-car suddenly shot in
from the street and came to a stop in the center of the garage floor.
"Hey, how about some gas?" called out
the young chap behind the driving wheel. "I've been tooting my horn
out in front for the last five minutes."
"Never heard you, son," responded Gus,
while Joe hurriedly wheeled the portable gas tank around behind the car.
Gus stood surveying the car
reflectively while the filling process was going on. Then, as Joe
began to screw the cap on the gas tank, Gus wiped his hands in a bit of
waste and strolled over to the front of the car.
"Say, young fellow," he said," why
don't you fix those headlights? You're due for a ticket if you leave
them like that."
"What do you mean, 'fix'?" demanded the
owner indignantly, "Those are darn good lights. See how they light
up your garage."
"Sure they're good lights," nodded Gus
with a grin. "Good for you, that is, but how about the other fellow?
He has some rights, too, you know. Swing your car around so that the
lights will be facing the back door, and I'll show you what I mean. There,
that's far enough," called out Gus, as the beams from the headlights lit
up the white-washed door. "Now step up close here. See that
black line across the door? The law in this state says that no part
of the beam should go higher than that. Your lights, though, are
adjusted so that at least half the beam is above the line."
"I know that," the car-owner broke in,
"but if I tip them down, I can't see the road far enough ahead when I
drive fast."
"Quite true," admitted Wilson.
"But you're violating the law just the same. Suppose everybody else
thought as you do, and used blinding lights and drove like - er -
lightning? Why, there wouldn't be hospitals enough for the victims -
or tow cars enough to drag away the wrecks!"
"The days of fast night driving with
dazzling lights are gone forever. There are too many cars on the
roads now. A driver has to think of the other fellow and adjust his
headlights so that he'll get all the light he needs without blinding
everybody he meets."
The car-owner smiled derisively.
"That sounds all right," he said, " but
it just can't be done."
"It can't, eh?" snapped Gus. "I
wish you'd give me five minutes on those lights! If I can't make
better lights of them and still have them comply with the law, I'll make
you a present of my time - and throw in that gasoline you just bought!"
"Fair enough!" grinned the owner.
"Go to it!"
Wilson got a toolkit, stepped to the
front of the car, and removed the front flange and lens from each
headlight. Then he took out the bulbs and examined them carefully,
holding them up to the big electric light in the center of the garage
ceiling.
"There - see how much darker one of
them is," he said, offering them so that the owner might observe also.
"That's caused by little pieces, or molecules, or whatever you call 'em,
that fly off the hot filament and stick to the glass. A few more
days and this dark bulb will be ready to pass out for good."
"Phew, better let me have a new one!"
exclaimed the owner. "In fact, you'd better make it two.
They've been on the job more than six months now, and I do a lot of
driving at night. Put in good big ones so I'll have a lot of light."
"Nothing stirring," said Gus:
"21-candlepower is all the law allows you, and you have that size now.
Of course, some of the 'gyp' dealers will sell you bulbs marked with a
higher rating than 21-candlepower, but the extra candlepower is mostly in
the label on the box!"
"Twenty-one for me then - got two
tickets for speeding this year and I certainly don't want another chance
to say 'Good morning, judge!"
"It wouldn't be healthy for your
pocketbook," Gus chuckled. "Joe, get out two bulbs - make it three - you
ought to have a spare."
While Joe went after the bulbs, Gus
carefully dusted out the reflectors with a clean silk handkerchief that
had appeared miraculously from a concealed pocket in his greasy overalls.
"Speaking of reflectors," said Gus,
"one of those scientific sharps told me once that an automobile reflector
that had lost enough of its shininess so that you could tell that it was
not quite new would reflect only about 50 percent as much light as when it
was new."
"Well," the owner observed, "who'd
expect a rusty old reflector to give much light?"
"Who mentioned rusty junk?" demanded
Gus: "I meant a reflector that has lost its first brilliancy - just
a bit foggy - not really had at all. Take your reflectors. They look
like new, but I'll bet they're lost at least 10 per cent of their
light-reflecting power."
"Well, what can I do about that?" asked
the owner.
"Nothing," Gus answered. "Special
buffing apparatus is needed to bring full polish back to a reflector, and
it takes an expert to run the apparatus. The best way for the rest
of us to treat a headlight reflector is to leave it alone. Anyway,
never do more to it than dust it off us gently as you can every now and
then. Then when the shine goes, after a year or two, send it to some
firm that makes a specialty of refinishing auto lamps."
"Leaving them alone ought to be easy
enough," laughed the owner, "but isn't there anything I can do to keep
them from getting dim?"
"Yes. Have the front lenses fit
as nearly airtight and watertight as possible."
"Why not use a rubber gasket in place
of that piece of cord, then?"
"Not on your life!" Gus said
emphatically. "Don't use rubber on any account. It would make
a water-tight fit all right, but after a while the sulphur in the rubber
would discolor the silver plating on the reflector. The cord will do
the work well enough, provided it is not squashed down so that it does not
have any spring left in it."
He fished a screwdriver out of the
tool-kit, and fitted it to the screwhead that projected from the center of
the back of one of the headlights.
"See what happens to the beam of light
when I turn this screw," he bade. "Notice how it contracts and then
spreads all over the door again. We will leave it where it makes a
smooth, uniform band across the door. That happens to be an extra
good bulb - nice, even light. It's almost impossible to focus the
cheap bulbs some of the 'gyps' sell you."
"There!" Gus said as he tossed
the screwdriver back in the toolkit after focusing both headlights
properly. "Now we'll see about turning those beams down so that they
don't hit the door above the line."
He examined the lamp bracket carefully.
"This is going to be easy," he said;
"the brackets are adjustable, so all we have to do is to loosen up the
bolts and set the headlights where we want them. Joe, just hold your
hand on the door there so I can see where the top of the beam ought to
come - there, that's right."
"But you have the lights pointed too
low now,"" complained the owner as Wilson tightened the last nut.
"No, they're just right. You have
to make some allowance for the effect of loading down the back end of the
car with three people. You want them right when you have a full load
of passengers aboard."
"Gosh, I never thought of that," said
the owner after studying the light on the door for a moment. "They
seem to give a pretty good light at that. Maybe I won't have to dim
them every time I pass another car now that they are on the right side of
the law," he suggested.
"Not unless you are going over the top
of a hill," said Gus. "That makes the beam shoot up in the air a
bit. By the way, why don't you fit a spotlight?"
END
