My Friend the Chauffeur

"Wanted, ladies, to conduct." An amateur automobilist, English and titled, offers to drive two or three ladies, Americans preferred, to any picturesque centre in Europe, at five guineas a day each. Ralph Moray has put the advertisement in his own little Riviera newspaper for the sake of his friend Terry, Lord Terence Barrymore, who is hard up, owns a motor-car, and has not yet been told.

What follows is a comedy of disguise on the open road, from the Riviera to the Italian lakes: a peer in a chauffeur's place, formidable travellers, romantic rivalries, princely schemes, and a kidnapping that turns play-acting into a test of courage. C. N. and A. M. Williamson tell it in shifting first-person voices, with a delight in reinvention that still feels modern.