The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More

The first-person narrator is driving to London in his new BMW. He sees a hitchhiker waiting for a ride, and he slows to a stop. The narrator recalls his own past as a hitchhiker and how cars drove past him as though he were invisible. The narrator describes the hitchhiker as “a small ratty-faced man with gray teeth” (27). The hitchhiker is not eager to offer much information about himself, and the narrator remembers that he did not enjoy the way drivers used to pepper him with nosy questions in his own hitchhiking past. The narrator tells the hitchhiker that he is a writer, and the hitchhiker warms to him when he learns that the narrator is in a skilled trade.

The hitchhiker encourages the narrator to test the limit of the car’s acceleration. The narrator pushes the speed until they reach 120 miles per hour and a police car appears behind them. When they pull over, the officer hassles them for driving so fast. The hitchhiker tells the officer that his name is Michael Fish, and that he works as a hod carrier, someone who carries cement up ladders to brick layers. The officer tells the two men that he will see them in court.