"Don't do it," he said seriously. "Please don't do it."

"But I please will, thank you," she returned; "and I'm going to make more money out of it than anybody."

"What does your father say?" he asked,

"Offered me a hundred dollars not to!"

"Then I suppose it wouldn't be any good offering two hundred."

"Not in the least--nor two thousand!"

Coal Oil Johnny sighed, and puffed away at his cigar.

"See here," he said at last, "why wouldn't it be a bright idea to give me lessons--at so much a lesson--on how to behave, and that kind of thing!"

Sattie Felton clapped her hands together excitedly.

"I take him, I take him!" she cried. "I spoke first, girls, and it beats filing all hollow." In her eagerness she jumped up and ran to Coal Oil Johnny, as though to hold him tight and prevent his being s.n.a.t.c.hed away from her by the others. Poor Ba.s.sity had hoped to fall into other hands, and his face showed his disappointment.

"I hoped--" he stammered. "I thought perhaps--"

"No, Sattie spoke first," said Miss Hemingway, detecting incipient rebellion, "and, anyway, she deserves to have you, for her plan wasn't any good and was hardly better than getting a present of the money from her father!"

"What can I charge him?" exclaimed Sattie. "What are lessons worth, Dolly--good long ones?"

"Five dollars each, or fifty for a course of twelve," replied that reliable authority. "Diploma, elegantly tinted for framing, one dollar!"

"It isn't too much, is it?" asked Sattie anxiously of Mr.

Ba.s.sity. "I don't want to rob you, you know, and even half would be more than I could get by filing."

"Oh, it's cheap," said Coal Oil Johnny, attempting to seem cheerful. "I never expected to become a social favorite for anything under a hundred. Only I wish you wouldn't try your way," he added aside to Miss Sinclair. "I mean it in all earnestness. If I had a sister--"

"You'd keep her in a red morocco case, and only show her in peeps to people of guaranteed respectability," said Grace, continuing his sentence for him. "That's always the way with imaginary sisters. But the real ones like to jump in and help the old world along!"

"Oh, but do take a chauffeur," he pleaded.

Miss Sinclair gave him a mocking smile.

"Would you mind my running my own little show in my own little way?" she observed sweetly.

He blew out a large smoke-ring and did not reply. His honest, sunburned face a.s.sumed a far-away expression. Coal Oil Johnny was thinking!

In the line of cabs and omnibuses that stood outside the I.B.&Q.

depot was a Despardoux car, dazzling the eye with bra.s.s, and reflecting the pa.s.sing throng in the deep, ruby, red of its highly polished surface. Its only occupant was Miss Grace Sinclair, suffocating in a leather coat, and with her shy, pretty face well concealed behind an automobile mask. At the side of the car, neatly pinned to one of the long rawhide baskets, was the following invitation to the public:

BEAUTIFUL STACKPORT TWO HOURS' RIDE FOR $1 CHILDREN 1/2 PRICE

But the public who had possibly already seen beautiful Stackport for themselves, or who, maybe, were withheld by the lack of the necessary dollar--the public, jostling past in an intermittent stream, and coy as always in the investment of its cash, disregarded the allurements of the Despardoux, and scarcely deigned even to look its way. A few of its members, however, of a chatty and mechanical turn, were willing to volunteer a vast deal of random conversation with less than no encouragement; but the man with the dollar, the man who desired to see beautiful Stackport, the man who thirsted for a two hours' ride--children half-price--was yet to come.

Grace Sinclair had waited an hour. Her first eager expectancy had given way to a heartbreaking consciousness of failure. She felt herself humiliated, less for herself than for her Despardoux. She had thrown down her pearls, and the swine (true to tradition) were treating them in the time-honored manner. At last, when hope was nearly dead within her breast, it was suddenly revived by the appearance of a rustic gentleman, who, stopping as though he had received a galvanic shock, opened his mouth as he slowly spelled out the notice on the basket. It was plain he was from the country, for his reddish whiskers were untrimmed, his hair long and straggling, his clothes of an extraordinary and antique design; and, moreover, under his arm he carried a coal-oil box, slatted across the front, which contained a live rooster. It was a pity that so st.u.r.dy a representative of the agricultural cla.s.ses should have worn spectacles, and blue ones at that, and he had a troubled, peering, blind look that caused Grace a momentary pang. But he seemed a jolly, hearty fellow in spite of his infirmity, and coming up to her he gave her a broad and confidential smile.

"About this burd," he began, in a rich, friendly drawl, indicating the rooster. "Be there any trouble about the burd coming, too?"

"Not a particle," said Miss Sinclair.

"Hey?" said the stranger. "Hey?"

"Glad to have it," said Miss Sinclair, trying to suit her English to the intelligence of the plain people.

"But no monkey business?" said the gentleman from the country.

"No half-price rung on me later? No extry for live stock?"

"One dollar, and no charge for rooster," said Grace in her most matter-of-fact tones.

From a capacious and inner pocket the stranger produced a venerable wallet, and from the venerable wallet a dollar bill.

"A lot of money for just whizzing through the air," he remarked genially, handing it to her. "I could fall off my barn for nothing, and as like as not be less hurt than when you've got through with me!"

"I'll get you back all right," said Miss Sinclair.

The stranger showed symptoms of wanting to climb into the tonneau by way of the mud-guard; and his enthusiasm was unbounded when he was directed to the door.

"Gosh!" he exclaimed, seating himself luxuriously on the cushions. "Gosh! but they've got these things down fine! I never read the Poultry Gazette of a Sat.u.r.day night without saying to myself, what next? Every day some new way of being killed, or some old way improved! My! but this is the dandiest of all!"

"There isn't the least danger if people are careful," said Grace, gazing out of the corner of her eye at three very loud and offensively jocular young men, their straw hats tilted at the back of their heads, who had also been arrested by the notice on the basket. They were flashily dressed, with race-tout written all over them, and their keen, impudent, tallowy faces filled her with sudden misgiving.

"Let's try the old h.e.l.l-wagon," said one.

"If people are only careful," repeated Grace forlornly.

"I dug four automobeelists out of a ditch once," observed the rural gentleman. "One had his leg broke, and the others were scratched something awful--but perhaps they weren't careful!"

"Say, we want to see beautiful Stackport," said one of the touts, clambering into the front seat beside Grace.

"Get out of that and give your place to a handsomer man," cried another, trying to pull him out by the legs.

The scuffle ended in the triumph of number one, who turned to Grace and addressed her in a hoa.r.s.e, ironical voice.

"Never you mind them," he said. "They're only a pair of cheap skates who've won out a little on the track, and are blowing it in."

"c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!" exclaimed another, poking his fingers through the bars at the rooster.

"Wind her up, young chafer!" exclaimed the third.

"The fare is one dollar in advance," said Grace Sinclair, whose heart was sinking within her.

Then there ensued a humorous altercation in which they tried to beat her down to seventy-five cents. But Grace, remaining firm, finally received her three dollars, though they made it a point of honor to pay her in the smallest change they could muster.