Boy's Precocity.

Thames Star, Volume LXV, Issue 19247, 31 October 1934, Page 4

Boy's Precocity.

DRIVING MOTOR-CAR. OFFER TO POLICEMAN. When Sergeant Rushbrook, of Glebe, Sydney, was on patrol duty recently, a passing motorist told him that a small boy had stopped him and asked him to overcome some mechanical trouble in a baby car he was driving. At that moment the sergeant saw the car passing down Hegarty Street, with a diminutive boy crouched low over the wheel. When the policeman turned into Hereford Street the car was beside the kerb, and the boy was busily engaged with the mechanism. “You are just the man I’m looking for,” the urchin said when ho saw the sergeant approaching. “Coin*' and see if you can fix my littlo trouble.” “My father lets me drive,” ho continued, as Sergeant Rushbrook eyed him, “and I’ve had a bit of trouble driving down from Hornsby.” “Oh,” he declared in answer to a query. “I did not steal the car. I know all about cars, but the engine has stalled, and there is something wrong somewhere.” “I think just the two of us had better go along to the station,” said the policeman, good-naturedly. ; Schoolboy’s Friend. “Now 1 we have been told at school that the policeman is everybody’s friend, so I knoAV you would not do a thing like that,” the boy replied with a grin. “If you do I’ll know what to do when I see a policeman needing assistance.” But the sergeant was adamant. “Now listen, Mr. Policeman,” the boy is alleged to have pleaded, “forget all about it and I will give you some money on Saturday.” At the police station it was ascertained that the boy had taken the car from Bridge Road and had driven it down back lanes and for about a quarter of a mile through heavy traffic. His explanation was that he had hurt his foot, and rather than walk to the Children’s Hospital had decided to take a. car and drive. Later it was discovered that he had been sent to school, but preferred to call the day a holiday. His mother said that he had learned to drive at the age of six. The owner of the car,- an insurance inspector, did not realise that his car had been taken until he noticed the vehicle standing outsido the police station as he happened to pass.