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Miss Briggs told me that in order to reach it I should take the ferry to Fairbarbor, and then cross that town to the Buzzards Bay side.

“You can’t miss it,” she said. “It’s a big stone house, with red and white awnings. If you see anything like a jail in ruffles, that’s it.”

It was evident that with the home I had rejected Miss Briggs was unimpressed; but seeing me add the post-card to my collection, she offered me another.

“This,” she explained, “is Harbor Castle from the bay. That is their yacht in the foreground.”

The post-card showed a very beautiful yacht of not less than two thousand tons. Beneath it was printed “HARBOR LIGHTS; steam yacht owned by Fletcher Farrell.” I always had dreamed of owning a steam yacht, and seeing it stated in cold type that one was owned by “Fletcher Farrell,” even though I was not that Fletcher Farrell, gave me a thrill of guilty pleasure. I gazed upon the post-card with envy.

“HARBOR LIGHTS is a strange name for a yacht,” I ventured. Miss Briggs smiled.

“Not for that yacht,” she said. “She never leaves it.”

I wished to learn more of my would-be parents, and I wished to keep on talking with the lovely Miss Briggs, so, as an excuse for both, I pretended I was interested in the Farrells because I had something I wanted to sell them.

“This Fletcher Farrell must be very rich,” I said. ” I wonder,” I asked, “if I could sell him an automobile?” The moment I spoke I noticed that the manner of Miss Briggs toward Me perceptibly softened. Perhaps, from my buying offhand a fifty-dollar book she had thought me one of the rich, and had begun to suspect I was keeping her waiting on me only because I found her extremely easy to look at. Many times before, in a similar manner, other youths must have imposed upon her, and perhaps, also, in concealing my admiration, I had not entirely succeeded.

But, when she believed that, like herself, I was working for my living, she became more human.

“What car are you selling?” she asked. “I am TRYING to sell,” I corrected her, “the Blue Bird, six cylinder.”

“I never heard of it,” said Miss Briggs.

“Nor has any one else,” I answered, with truth. “That is one reason why I can’t sell it. I arrived here this morning, and,” I added with pathos, “I haven’t sold a car yet!”

Miss Briggs raised her beautiful eyebrows skeptically. “Have you tried?” she said.

A brilliant idea came to me. In a side street I had passed a garage where Photaix cars were advertised for hire. I owned a Phoenix, and I thought I saw a way by which, for a happy hour, I might secure the society of Miss Briggs.

“I am an agent and demonstrator for the Phoenix also,” I said glibly; “maybe I could show you one?”

“Show me one?” exclaimed Miss Briggs. “One sees them everywhere! They are always under your feet!”

“I mean,” I explained, “might I take you for a drive in one?”

It was as though I had completely vanished. So far as the lovely Miss Briggs was concerned I had ceased to exist. She turned toward a nice old lady.

“What can I show you, Mrs. Scudder?” she asked cheerily; “and how is that wonderful baby? “

I felt as though I had been lifted by the collar, thrown out upon a hard sidewalk, and my hat tossed after me. Greatly shaken, and mentally brushing the dust from my hands and knees, I hastened to the ferry and crossed to Fairharbor. I was extremely angry. By an utter stranger I had been misjudged, snubbed and cast into outer darkness. For myself I readily found excuses. If a young woman was so attractive that at the first sight of her men could not resist buying her fifty-dollar books and hiring automobiles in which to take her driving, the fault was hers. I assured myself that girls as lovely as Miss Briggs were a menace to the public. They should not be at large. An ordinance should require them to go masked. For Miss Briggs also I was able to make excuses. Why should she not protect herself from the advances of strange young men? If a popular novelist, and especially an ex-popular one, chose to go about disguised as a drummer for the Blue Bird automobile and behaved as such, and was treated as such, what right had he to complain? So I persuaded myself I had been punished as I deserved. But to salve my injured pride I assured myself also that any one who read my novels ought to know my attitude toward any lovely lady could be only respectful, protecting, and chivalrous. But with this consoling thought the trouble was that nobody read my novels.