the beach.

"Hello, Maje," I says, brisk and easy, "you ought not to holler like that. You’ll bust a b’iler. Your face looks like a red-hot stove already."

He mopped his forehead. "Shut up, you old fool," says he. "Think I’m here to listen to a lecture about my face? You carry Mr. Shelton and me out to that boat of yours. We want you to sail us home."

So the other chap was the Congressman. I’d guessed as much. I went up to him and held out my hand.

"Pleased to know you, Mr. Shelton," says I. "Had the pleasure of votin’ for you last fall."

Shelton shook and smiled. "This is Cap’n Snow, isn’t it?" he says, his eyes twinklin’. "Glad to meet you, I’m sure. I’ve heard of you often."

"I shouldn’t wonder," says I. "Major Clark and me are old chums and I cal’late he’s mentioned my name at least once. Hey, Maje?"

The Major grinned. I grinned, too; and Shelton laughed out loud.

"I never saw such a talkin’ machine in my life," snaps Clark. "Don’t stop to tell us the story of your life. Take us aboard that boat of yours. You’ve got to get us back to Ostable, d’you understand?"

"Have, hey?" says I. "I appreciate the honor, but.... However, maybe you won’t mind tellin’ me what you’re doin’ here, twelve miles from nowhere?"

The Major was too mad to answer, so Shelton did it for him.

"Well," he says, smilin’ and with a wink at his partner, "we _came_ in the Major’s auto, but—"He stopped without finishin’ the sentence. "The auto?" says I. "You came in the auto? Well, why don’t you go back in it? What’s the matter? Has it broke down? Humph! I ain’t surprised; them things are always breakin’ down, 'specially the cheap ones." 

That stirred up the kettle. The Major gave me to understand that his auto cost six thousand dollars and was the best blessedty-blank car on earth. It wa’n’t the auto’s fault. It hadn’t broke down. It had stuck in the eternal and everlastin’ sand and they couldn’t get it out, that was the trouble. 

"But Abubus can get it out, can’t he?" says I. "Abubus runs it like a bird, you told me so yourself. Now a bird can fly, and if you want to get from here to Ostable in anything like a straight line, you’ve got to fly. By the way, where is 

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