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“I haven’t any intention of touching it again,” said Tish, meekly enough. “But I wish I could buy a second-hand racer cheap.”

“What for?” Aggie demanded.

Tish looked at her with scorn. “To hold flowers on the dining-table,” she snapped.

It being necessary, of course, to leave a chaperon with Bettina, because of the Jasper person’s habit of coming over at any hour of the day, we left Aggie with instructions to watch them both.

Tish and I drove to the drug store together, and from there to a garage for gasoline. I have never learned to say “gas” for gasoline. It seems to me as absurd as if I were to say “but” for butter. Considering that Aggie was quite sulky at being left, it is absurd for her to assume an air of virtue over what followed that day. Aggie was only like a lot of people–good because she was not tempted; for it was at the garage that we met Mr. Ellis.

We had stopped the engine and Tish was quarreling with the man about the price of gasoline when I saw him–a nice-looking young man in a black-and-white checked suit and a Panama hat. He came over and stood looking at Tish’s machine.

“Nice lines to that car,” he said. “Built for speed, isn’t she? What do you get out of her?”

Tish heard him and turned. “Get out of her?” she said. “Bills mostly.”

“Well, that’s the way with most of them,” he remarked, looking steadily at Tish. “A machine’s a rich man’s toy. The only way to own one is to have it endowed like a university. But I meant speed. What can you make?”

“Never had a chance to find out,” Tish said grimly. “Between nervous women in the machine and constables outside I have the twelve-miles-an- hour habit. I’m going to exchange the speedometer for a vacuum bottle.”

He smiled. “I don’t think you’re fair to yourself. Mostly–if you’ll forgive me–I can tell a woman’s driving as far off as I can see the machine; but you are a very fine driver. The way you brought that car in here impressed me considerably.”

“She need not pretend she crawls along the road,” I said with some sarcasm. “The bills she complains of are mostly fines for speeding.”

“No!” said the young man, delighted. “Good! I’m glad to hear it. So are mine!”

After that we got along famously. He had his car there–a low gray thing that looked like an armored cruiser.

“I’d like you ladies to try her,” he said. “She can move, but she is as gentle as a lamb. A lady friend of mine once threaded a needle as an experiment while going sixty-five miles an hour.”

“In this car?”

“In this car.”

Looking back, I do not recall just how the thing started. I believe Tish expressed a desire to see the car go, and Mr. Ellis said he couldn’t let her out on the roads, but that the race-track at the fair-ground was open and if we cared to drive down there in Tish’s car he would show us her paces, as he called it.

From that to going to the race-track, and from that to Tish’s getting in beside him on the mechanician’s seat and going round once or twice, was natural. I refused; I didn’t like the look of the thing.

Tish came back with a cinder in her eye and full of enthusiasm. “It was magnificent, Lizzie,” she said. “The only word for it is sublime. You see nothing. There is just the rush of the wind and the roar of the engine and a wonderful feeling of flying. Here! See if you can find this cinder.”

“Won’t you try it, Miss–er–Lizzie?”

“No, thanks,” I replied. “I can get all the roar and rush of wind I want in front of an electric fan, and no danger.”

He stood by, looking out over the oval track while I took three cinders from Tish’s eye.

“Great track!” he said. “It’s a horse-track, of course, but it’s in bully shape–the county fair is held there and these fellows make a big feature of their horse-races. I came up here to persuade them to hold an automobile meet, but they’ve got cold feet an the proposition.”