20. Curiously, the British Locomotive Act of 1865 (also known as the “Red Flag Act”) required that no self-propelled vehicle (which included cars) could travel faster than four miles per hour in the country, and two miles per hour in the city. Each car was also required to have a crew of three, one of whom had to walk 180 feet in front of the car carrying a red flag. In 1878, the whole flag business was made optional as cars became faster, probably because someone in a car got tired of traveling at two miles an hour and ran over the bloke with the flag, making it hard to recruit replacement flag wavers from then on.

VII

In Which We Have a Musical Interlude

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, DAN gathered the dwarfs in the yard behind the offices of “Dan, Dan the Talent Man, & Company,” as he had recently renamed himself and the business. The “& Company” referred to the dwarfs, who each had an equal share in the talent management company, and therefore an equal say in its affairs. This made the monthly company meetings noisy, stressful, and, in the case of Mumbles, difficult to understand. Behind Dan was a vaguely van-shaped object covered in a white tarpaulin.

“Now,” said Dan, “you’ll remember that, at our August meeting, we decided we should buy a new van.”

The dwarfs vaguely remembered this. They didn’t pay a lot of attention at the company meetings. They just liked shouting and arguing, and sticking their hands up to vote for things that they didn’t understand.²¹ They might well have voted in favor of buying a new van. Then again, they might have voted in favor of buying a spaceship, or invading China. For little people, the dwarfs didn’t pay much attention to small print.

“Just remind us: why are we buying a new van again?” asked Jolly.

“Because we can’t keep repainting the old one,” said Dan. “And you didn’t want to be known as ‘Dan’s Dwarfs’ anymore, or even ‘Dan’s Elves.’ ”

“That’s because elves don’t exist,” said Angry. “It’s like being called ‘Dan’s Unicorns,’ or ‘Dan’s Dragons.’ ”

“Exactly,” said Dan.

“And we’re not ‘your’ elves,” said Jolly. “It makes us sound like slaves. Which we’re not.”

You’re definitely not, thought Dan. Slaves might do a bit of work occasionally.

“You don’t like being called ‘little people,’ ” said Dan, “and you’re not sure about ‘dwarfs,’ so I had to think up a different name, which I did. I now present to you—the new van!”

Dan whipped away the tarpaulin, and the van stood revealed. It was bright yellow, and very shiny.

Dan glowed.

The van glowed.

The dwarfs did not glow.

“What’s that?” said Angry.

“It’s a van,” said Dan.

“No, not that. That! The writing on the side.”

“It’s your new name: Dan’s Stars of Diminished Stature.”

Dan was very proud of the new name for the dwarfs. He’d spent ages thinking it up, and he’d visited the painters every day that they were working on the job just to make sure they got the details right. The words flowed diagonally down both sides of the van. They’d even found a way to continue the writing over the windows without obscuring the view. The van was a work of art.