it, and I'll play square and do my best to understand, without no nonsense."

"Say, you bet I will, Miss La Tour!" says this bird, who, married or not, had some spirit in him yet. "You bet I will! You see, a lot of dames come in here just because they ain't got nothing else to do. And you yourself must realize that a guy can only go through the motions when that's all they want."

Well, I could see that plain enough, and from then on we got along like a new team of partners with equal money in the act and going[Pg 43] big on thirty straight weeks' booking. And—believe you me—there is a awful lot of interesting things about a auto; only you would never suspect it until you start to look at what is under the hood and body. As to understanding them all, you couldn't get it all off of no twenty sheets of yellow paper, nor twenty hundred, either! It's a career, really understanding a machine is; just the same as being a expert dancer. The guy that invented all them parts and got them working together certainly must of set up nights doing it.

[Pg 43]

Well, anyways, after two hours of lapping up this dope I got so's I could actually tell the cam shaft from the crank shaft and the difference between a cycle and a cylinder, which was enough for one day. And then I rode home to Ma.

Actually I had almost forgot to be miserable about Jim for two whole hours! But when I got home, and he hadn't phoned to apologize yet, it all came back over me, and I simply felt that, automobiles and enlistments or no, I wanted to die—just die! I cried so bad that even Ma couldn't make me mind, and I was so tired I couldn't even taste the hot cakes she had fixed. I do believe Ma would think of[Pg 44] cooking something tasty if the world was coming to a end the next minute. She'd be afraid the recording angel would need a sandwich and a cup of hot coffee to keep him going while he was on the job.

[Pg 44]

But, anyways, they couldn't do nothing to me, or get me to go to the Ritz or the theater much less the midnight show; but the last did not matter, because I was wore out and asleep long before. And so Ma had to telephone that Miss La Tour was suddenly ill and unable to appear. I made her swear not to phone Jim nor let him in nor Roscoe, the publicity man, if they was to come—not on no account. And so I slept—poor child!—worn by the tossing of the cruel ocean of life—do you get me?

Well, next morning I was up 

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