But with all the heaps he knew, the Gasoline Child was a good deal like the man who got rich by never spending anything. His knowledge was imbedded in him like gold in quartz; you could see it there all right, but couldn't take it out. He tried so hard to be helpful, too; would plunge his little paw into the greasy darkness below the seat and say:

"That's a nut you ought to remember now it works on the babbitt of the counter-shaft"--or something of the kind--"and you must see to it regular." Or, "Watch your valves, Miss, and be keerful they don't gum on you." Or, "Them commutators are often the seat of trouble, for oftentimes they wear down and don't break the spark right." When I'd grow dizzy with these explanations he would rea.s.sure me by saying that "I'd soon fall into it, like he did." But I didn't fall into it nearly so well as I could have wished. On the contrary, the more I learned the more intricate the whole thing seemed to grow, and I looked forward to taking the car out alone by myself with the sensations of a prisoner about to be guillotined. Not that I had lost heart in automobilism. The elation of those rides was delicious. The little car ran with a lightness that was almost like flying; it was as buoyant, swift and smooth as a glorified sledge; one awoke with joy to the fact that the world contained a new and irresistible pleasure.

The Gasoline Child soon taught me to run it for myself. With him by my side I was as brave as a lion, and I took the corners and shaved eternity in a way to make him gasp. He said he had never been really scared in an automobile before, and he used to look at me with a ready-to-jump expression, as though I were a baby playing with a gun. You see, I had graduated on Lewis Wentz's steamer and a twenty-mile clip didn't feaze me any, though there were times when I'd forget which things to pull, and this always seemed to rattle his little nerves. It was strange, however, what a coward I was when I first went out by myself. There was no devil left in me at all, and I was certainly the crawly-crawliest bubbler you ever saw, and I teetered at street-car crossings till everybody went mad. It might have been worse than it was, though, for the only real trouble I had was chipping the tail off a milk wagon and ramming a silly horse on Eighth Avenue.

When his friends helped him up (he had been standing still at the time, and I had forgotten the low gear always started with a jump) they said his front legs were barked flve dollars' worth.

I wouldn't have minded if he had got the five dollars, poor thing, for after ramming him once I became confused at the notoriety I attracted, and, instead of reversing, I threw in the highspeed clutch and rammed him some more. Oh, yes, he had some right to have a kick coming, though all he did was to look at me reproachfully and then lie down. He was an Italian vegetable horse, and from the way his friends vociferated they must have thought a lot of him.

Of course, Harry and Nelly were taking their lessons, too, and getting into their individual sc.r.a.pes in the intervals of my getting into mine. Pa was the only stock-holder who never came to time, though he used to walk round to the garage on his day to make sure the bubble was at home. He was awfully mean about his rights and explained the syndicate principle to Mr. Hoover, the head of the establishment, and tipped right and left, so that there shouldn't be any doubt about the blanks being blanks. I tried to bluff Mr. Hoover once and take out the car on pa's day, but I b.u.mped into a regular stone wall. Pa had given everybody there a typewritten schedule with his days marked in red ink, and the whole thing had become the joke of the garage, till even the wipers grinned when the foreman would call out: "Syndicate car there, for Miss Lockwood."

In fact, that car seemed to make everybody mean who was in the least way connected with it. I was a perfect pig myself, and Harry and Nelly were positively worse. It was one of our rules that the rider of the day should be answerable for any troubles or breakages that occurred when be (or she) was running the car.

Naturally, there had to be some understanding of this kind, for personality counts a lot in automobiling, and often the chauffeur is more to blame than the machine. But it was awful what fibs it tempted us into, and how we were always "pa.s.sing the buck," as they say in poker. Nelly got so treacherous that once she told me she didn't care to use the wagon that day, and would I like to? She had chewed up the bearings in a front wheel and if I hadn't suspected her generosity and taken a good look beforehand it would have cost me six dollars!

I guess I wasn't any better myself, and quite a coolness sprang up all around.

The repair bills came to a good deal of money, and the eighteen dollars a month we paid at the garage was the least of the total.

The Henry Ward Beecher agent had told Harry it cost a cent a mile to run a Fearless, but if he had said a dollar-eighty he would have been nearer the mark. Mr. Hoover said cheerfully he knew only one person who had got automobiling down to bed-rock, and that was pa! But for the rest of the syndicate it was their life's blood. It began to dawn on Harry and Nelly that they could never get married at all, as long as they stayed in the combine. It had cost them all the money they had saved to come in, and now it was taking every cent they had to stay in. Nelly used to cry about it, though I never noticed that it made any difference in her taking out the car, which she did regularly, and didn't let me ride with her unless I paid a dollar each time in advance. She said she didn't know any other way of saving money.

Altogether, you wouldn't have known us for the same three people, we had all grown so horrid and changed and mercenary. Nelly was hankering to get married, while I was crazy to put in a radiator with a forced water circulation (ours was a silly old kind that boiled on you), and Harry wobbled one way and the other as though he couldn't make up his mind--sometimes agreeing with her, and sometimes frantic for a radiator. It looked as though the Fearless was going to make it a lifetime engagement, and Harry, said ruefully that their marriage was not only, made in Heaven, but would probably take place there. I should have felt sorrier for them if they hadn't been so horrid to me about it. From the way they talked, you'd think I had started the syndicate idea myself and had lured them into it against their own better judgment. They were nasty about pa, too, and said he was acting dishonorably with his blank days, and that as a new machine always had to be broken in and notoriously cost more for repairs the first year than ever afterward, he was meanly benefiting himself at our expense. Harry called it pa's "unearned increment" and seemed to think it was an outrage.

They struck a whole row of troubles about this time, too--stripping a gear, losing a front wheel on the main street and winding up by fracturing the whole transmission into finders.

Nelly would hardly speak to me on the street, and the Gasoline Child told me they would be cheaply out of it at eighty dollars.

Pa was the only person who didn't share the general depression.

In fact, he never seemed to be so happy as when the car was stripped in the shop and sure to stay there. He used to go around there occasionally and tell them they needn't hurry--and they didn't!

The new transmission was of a better model than the old one, and I foresaw I might have trouble about it with the syndicate. It would be just like Harry to talk about "unearned increment" and rope me in to pay part. But I still owed on my leather coat and wasn't in the humor to hand out a cent. What is the good of iron-clad agreements, anyway, if people don't live up to them --and as for the transmission, I was quite satisfied with the old one till they broke it. So when Nelly came around one night, all smiles and friendliness, I suspected trouble and didn't kiss her very hard back. But she was in too high spirits to notice anything, and hugged me and hugged me till I inwardly relented ten dollars' worth on the transmission--for Nelly and I had been good chums before we went into the syndicate, and there was a time when we would have shared our last chocolate cream.

"Virgie, you can't guess!" she exclaimed, her eyes dancing.

"The makers will do the right thing and won't charge for it?"

This brought her back again to earth at once.

"It--it isn't the transmission at all," she said. "I am going to get married next month!"

"I thought they insisted that Harry had to save a thousand dollars first."

"He's got it! He's got it!" she cried delightedly.

I was nearly as happy as she was, for it had looked terribly hopeless up till then, what with all the money they had put into the syndicate and the way the bubble was gobbling us up.

"Oh, Nelly, I am so glad," I said. "I'll put in that forced water circulation at once, and I'll make your and Harry's share of it a wedding present!"

"Oh, I'm out of the syndicate," she said. "I guess we'd prefer something for the flat."

"Out of the syndicate?" I cried.

"Yes," she returned brazenly. "Sold out!"

It took me a moment to pull myself together. I felt premonitions running all over me. I didn't feel so enthusiastic about their marriage as I had at first thought I was.

"Oh, Virgie, darling, you won't hate me?" she asked.

"Not till I hear more about it," I said.

She thought to make it up by squeezing my hands. But it wasn't squeezing that I wanted, it was facts. I drew away a bit and waited for them.

"Losing that front wheel was bad enough," she said, "especially as I went over the dashboard in my dotted muslin and Harry has limped ever since; but when the transmission broke it seemed as though it was both our hearts. Harry said we had come to a place where we had to choose between owning an automobile or getting married. It was perfectly plain we couldn't do both. $e said he didn't want to influence me either way, but that there was no good drifting on and on, deceiving ourselves and thinking it would all come out right. Of course, when he put it to me like that the bubble wasn't in it--and so we towed home for the last time and Harry, went around to close out our interest in the syndicate."

She paused here and looked at me, quite frightened.

"Around where, exactly?" I demanded.

"Well," she went on, "your father was always dropping hints that he would buy us out at the price we paid, and so Harry went to his office and tried to make a deal. But your father said it wasn't reasonable to expect him to pay for the new transmission, too--and as Harry didn't want to, and couldn't, the whole thing hung fire till Harry ran into Morty Truslow on the street. Morty offered him a thousand dollars right off for his half-interest,"

continued Nelly; "you know how free-handed be is, and rich, and Harry just jumped at it and walked off with the check."

"But you only paid half of seven hundred and fifty dollars in the first place!" I exclaimed.

"Well, you see," said Nelly, "that car has gone up since. It's 'appreciated,' as Harry calls it. And just think what a fortune it has stood us in for repairs!"

"It's the most horrid, mean, treacherous thing one person ever did to another!" I cried; "you know I wouldn't speak to Morty Truslow if be had the only monkey-wrench in the world and I was carbonized on a country road. I think you have acted detestably, and so has he, and I consider it downright caddish for him to buy a half-interest in anything I am connected with"

"Oh, Virgie, you don't know how bad be feels!" said Nelly. "He told me be had just been breaking his heart, and that you wouldn't answer his letters or anything, and if you would only let him talk for fifteen minutes he'd explain everything and you'd take him back."

"I won't take him back," I said.

"He wears a little flower you gave him next his heart," continued Nelly, "and when he speaks about you it is with tears in his eyes, and if you weren't made of flint and rock candy you'd feel so sorry for him you couldn't sleep!"

"What did be offer you to say all this, Nelly?" I demanded.

"Only a pearl horseshoe," she returned, quite unabashed. "Said I might choose it for myself at Helbe's if I could persuade you to give him a fifteen minutes' talk"

"I am sorry about the pearl horseshoe," I said ironically, "but you might as well give up the idea right now. And if he talked forty times fifteen minutes it wouldn't make the least difference in the world. He thinks he's so handsome and so well off and that so many girls are crazy about him that he only, has to whistle for you to come!"

"If it wasn't for Harry I would," she said; "that is, if he whistled loud enough and there wasn't too much of a crowd thinking he meant them! Oh, Virgie, it's just like Faversham to hear him talk, and I can't think how anybody could be such a little fool as to say no!"

"If you call that being a little fool I guess I am," I said, "though for a year he was the one man in my life, and if it hadn't been for Mrs. Gettridge--well, it's all off, now, and it's going to stay off,--and his owning half the bubble won't make the least difference in the world!"

"But you'll come to my wedding and be one of the bridesmaids?"

she pleaded. "And you won't blame me too much for getting out of the syndicate as I did? I knew it wasn't right and I felt awfully about it--but then, Harry and I couldn't have managed otherwise, and it takes years and years to save a thousand dollars!" she looked so sweet and pitiful and contrite as she said this that I forgave her everything and hugged her till she choked. It seemed a shame to spoil her happiness with reproaches, and I couldn't but think how I'd have felt myself if it had been Mor-- Not that I cared a row of pins for him now, and would have despised myself if I did--but everybody has moments of looking back--and girls are such fools anyway. And, of course, deep down somewhere I was pleased that he still cared.

I felt quite twittery when I first went to the garage after that, for I thought Morty might pop out at me from somewhere, and though I wasn't afraid to meet him and would have cut him if I had, it would inevitably be embarra.s.sing and upsetting. But he had the good taste to stay away on my days, and I never saw as much as a pin-feather of him. But he was awfully artful, even if he didn't let himself be seen, and the things he did to the car went straighter to my heart than any words he could have spoken.

He put in a radiator, a new battery with a switch, three twisted cowhide baskets, two fifty-dollar acetylene lamps, an odometer, a spark gap, a little clock on the dashboard, and changed the tooter for a splendid French horn. My repair bills, too, stopped as though by magic, and the bubble ran so well I guess people must have sat up nights with it! The engine would start at the half-turn of the crank; the clutches were adjusted to a hair; she speeded up to twenty now on the open throttle, which she had never done before except in the advertis.e.m.e.nt; she was the showiest, smartest, fastest little car in town, and when she miraculously went into red leather, edged with gold stampings, people used to fall over one another on the street. I believe those two months were the happiest months of my life. It was automobile Heaven, and if it hadn't been for pa's blanks and Morty's half-interest I should have been deliriously happy every day instead of every fourth.

I can't think how it happened, but finally I got confused and lost count. I had been away at my grandmother's for a week and somehow that threw me out. But it was a Thursday afternoon, I remember, and a beautiful autumn day, and I walked along to the garage with that delicious feeling of antic.i.p.ation--that tingle of happiness to come--that made my heart bound with love of the little red wagon. (The horse, for all his prancing and social position, never roused a sensation like that and never will.) I dodged a big touring-car coming out, and then went in on the floor to order my car. I was just telling Bert to get it out when I turned around, and there was Morty sitting in it not four feet away from me. He had his cap on and his leather coat, and I saw at once that I had made a terrible mistake. Before I could even think what to do he saw my predicament and leaped out, insisting that I--should take his place. I murmured something about being sorry and tried to move away, but he caught my arm and wouldn't let go. He was so eager and excited and made such a scene that I allowed myself to be bundled into the car rather than attract everybody's attention--for there was a Packard and a waterless Knox looking on. Bert started up the engine and I was just engaging the low-gear clutch, when Morty gave me such a look that I stopped dead. It seemed too horribly mean to rob him of his afternoon--besides, when you've been awfully in love with a man--and his face--

"Mr. Truslow," I said, speaking loud, so as not to be drowned by the engine, "if you promise on your honor not to speak a single word to me--you can come, too!" I had to say it twice before he understood, and then, didn't he bound in! I suppose it was an awfully reckless thing to do, for whatever they say about absence making the heart grow fonder, sitting close is lots more dangerous, and I began to feel all my pride and determination oozing out of my shoes. It came over me in waves that I loved him better than ever, and I stole little sidewise peeps at him --and every peep seemed to make it worse. He belonged to a splendid type--I had to admit that, even if I didn't forgive him --big, clear-eyed, ruddy and broad-shouldered--and there was something tremendously compelling and manly about him that seemed to sweep me off my feet. This only made me hate him more, for I didn't see how I could ever love anybody else, and it's dreary for a girl to have only a single man in her life and not even be on speaking terms with that one! It leaves her with no outlook or anything, and one might as well be dead right off. But you can't be long miserable in a bubble, even if you try--that is, if it is running nicely, developing full power and you have a fat, rich spark--and though I looked as cold and distant as I could, secretly I think I never was so happy in my life.