The Motormaniacs | Page 5

three
thousand.'
"'I can double that for you,' he said.
"'I don't want one cent more,' I said. That was just my chance to
shine--and I shined.
"He made a note of it in his pocketbook.
"'That's settled,' he said.
"'Not till I've said one thing more,' I remarked, 'and that is, I shan't be
horrid if the thing goes the wrong way. My dressmaker once put a
hundred dollars in an oil company, and the oil company man was surer
than you--and yet it went pop. I can easily tease my mare back from
papa.'
"He lay back again in the hammock and laughed, and laughed, and
laughed.
"'Oh, Jess Hardy,' he said, 'you'll be the death of me!'--and he laughed
as though it was at one of his own jokes.
"'I'd hate to make a vacancy in the wonderful old class of seventy-nine,'
I said.
"'Now, I want to say something, too,' he said, getting serious again. 'If
you have a pet minister who can't afford a holiday, or you want to help
that dressmaker pay off her mortgage, or give a boost to a poor family
who have had diphtheria--don't you think to help them by tipping off

Great Western Preferred. That sort of charity may sound cheap, but it's
likely to cost me hundreds of thousands. Let me know, and I'll send
them checks.'
"'Don't you worry about me,' I said.
"'I am told you are engaged to an Englishman,' he said; 'an Embassy
man at Washington. You aren't making any kind of mental reservation
in his case, are you?'
"'He's the last person I tell anything to,' I said. 'That is, --anything
important, you know.'
"'Then, Miss Jess Hardy,' he said, with his eyes twinkling as though he
were giving an Apostolic benediction at a Vanderbilt wedding, 'if you'll
bring me your four-fifty we'll close the deal.'
"'Perhaps it would be as well to leave papa out of this,' I hinted. 'I mean
about telling him anything, you know'
"'Oh, distinctly,' he said. 'Fred's a bit old-fashioned and we must respect
his prejudices. Wait till you get him on the cowcatcher of your Manton,
anti then break it to him gently.'
"'And, Mr. Collenquest,' I said, 'if you should really think it awfully
low and horrid of me to do this--I won't do it.'
"'My dear little girl,' he returned, 'get that out of your head right here. I
hope your car will prove everything you want it to be, and the same
with your Englishman, and I'm only too grateful that it wasn't a steam
yacht you had set your heart on, or a palace on the Hudson.'
"There isn't much more to be said about this part of the afair. Papa paid
me four-fifty for Gee-whizz, and I handed the check to Mr. Collenquest,
and Mr. Collenquest went away, and then the market began to turn
bullish (isn't that the word?) and Great Western went up with a whoop,
and it got whoopier and whoppier; and whenever anybody was certain
it had reached the top-notch it would take another kick skyward, and it
went on jumping and jumping till finally there came a letter from Mr.
Collenquest with a check for three thousand five hundred dollars,
saying I must have forgotten about buying Gee-whizz back again, and
that he had taken the liberty of exceeding my instructions about selling
till my shares had touched that figure. Then one morning, as we were at
breakfast, a great big splendid Manton car--my car--came whisking up
the drive and stopped in front of the house, and the expert--they had
thrown him in for a week for nothing--him and an odometer and an

ammeter, and a new kind of French spark-plug they wanted me to
try--and a gasoline tester --the Mantons are such nice people to deal
with in all those little ways--and the expert sent in word: would Miss
Hardy come out and see her new car? And, of course, Miss Hardy,
went out, and Mr. Hardy went out, and my, aunt went out, and the five
guests that were staying with us went out, and the servants went
out--and you never saw such a mix-up in all your life, nor such
excitement and hurrah-boys generally. For papa was ordering it off the
place, and I was explaining about Great Western Preferred, and my
aunt was trying to make us listen about a friend who had been burned
to death with a gasoline stove, and the guests were taking my part and
fighting for the first ride, and the expert was showing off the double
vertical cylinders, and explaining splash lubrication to the butler, whom
he must have mistaken for papa, and--
"When it had settled down a bit and the battle-smoke drifted away and
showed who had