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“Close,” observed Chuck to Joe Merrill his companion, “I was going a little too fast,” and thought no more of it.

But the other man, being angry, turned around and followed him into town. At the garage he sought Chuck out.

“Didn’t you pass me on the grade five miles back?” he inquired.

“I may have done so,” replied Chuck, courteously.

“Don’t you realize that you were going altogether too fast for a mountain grade? that you were completely out of control?”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to admit that that is so.”

“Well,” said the other man, with difficulty suppressing his anger. “What do you suppose would have happened if I hadn’t just been able to pull out?”

“Why,” replied Chuck, blandly, “I suppose I’d have had to pay heavily; that’s all.”

“Pay!” cried the man, then checked himself with an effort, “so you imagine you are privileged to the road, do whatever damage you please–and pay! I’ll just take your number.”

“That is unnecessary. My name is Charles Gates,” replied Chuck, “of San Francisco.”

The man appeared never to have heard of this potent cognomen. A month later the trial came off. It was most inconvenient. Chuck was in Oregon, hunting. He had to travel many hundreds of miles, to pay an expensive lawyer. In the end he was fined. The whole affair disgusted him, but he went through with it well, testified without attempt at evasion. It was a pity; but evidently the other man was no gentleman.

“I acknowledged I was wrong,” he told Joe Merrill. He honestly felt that this would have been sufficient had the cases been reversed. In answer to a question as to whether he considered it fair to place the burden of safety on the other man, he replied:

“Among motorists it is customary to exchange the courtesies of the road–and sometimes the discourtesies,” he added with a faint scorn.

The earthquake and fire of 1906 caught him in town. During three days and nights he ran his car for the benefit of the sufferers; going practically without food or sleep, exercising the utmost audacity and ingenuity in getting supplies, running fearlessly many dangers.

For the rest he played polo well, shot excellently at the traps, was good at tennis, golf, bridge. Naturally he belonged to the best clubs both city and country. He sailed a yacht expertly, was a keen fisherman, hunted. Also he played poker a good deal and was noted for his accurate taste in dress.

His mother firmly believed that he caused her much sorrow; his sisters looked up to him with a little awe; his father down on him with a fiercely tolerant contempt.

For Chuck had had his turn in the offices. His mind was a good one; his education both formal and informal, had trained it fairly well; yet he could not quite make good. Energetic, ambitious, keen young men, clambering upward from the ruck, gave him points at the game and then beat him. It was humiliating to the old man. He could not see the perfectly normal reason. These young men were striving keenly for what they had never had. Chuck was asked merely to add to what he already had more than enough of by means of a game that itself did not interest him.

Late one evening Chuck and some friends were dining at the Cliff House. They had been cruising up toward Tomales Bay, and had had themselves put ashore here. No one knew of their whereabouts. Thus it was that Chuck first learned of his father’s death from apoplexy in the scareheads of an evening paper handed him by the majordomo. He read the article through carefully, then went alone to the beach below. It had been the usual sensational article; and but two sentences clung to Chuck’s memory: “This fortunate young man’s income will actually amount to about ten dollars a minute. What a significance have now his days–and nights!”

He looked out to sea whence the waves, in ordered rank, cast themselves on the shore, seethed upward along the sands, poised, and receded. His thoughts were many, but they always returned to the same point. Ten dollars a minute–roughly speaking, seven thousand a day! What would he do with it? “What a significance have now his days–and nights!”

His best friend, Joe Merrill, came down the path to him, and stood silently by his side.

“I’m sorry about your governor, old man,” he ventured; and then, after a long time:

“You’re the richest man in the West.”

Chuck Gates arose. A wave larger than the rest thundered and ran hissing up to their feet.

“I wonder if the tide is coming in or going out,” said Chuck, vaguely.