which I had bought on my way to the agent's. 

 During the next five minutes I had good cause to thank Heaven for the mechanical bent that had turned my mind to motors and aeroplanes. 

 

 The same evening, at a little after six, a "commuter's" train landed me at the station of a small Long Island town almost too far away from New York to be labelled suburban. Big automobiles and small runabouts were there to meet the tired business men who travelled many miles for the sake of salt breezes and the latest thing in Elizabethan houses. I was more tired than any business man; also, I had encountered as many setbacks as successes, but nobody and nothing came to welcome me. I was able, however, to get a place in an old-fashioned horse-drawn vehicle whose mission was to pick up chance arrivals. There were several of us, and as my rate of locomotion was slow, by the time I had hobbled off the platform the one seat left was beside the driver. I was not sorry, as the other men appeared to be strangers in Sandy Plain, and having said I would go to the hotel (for the sake of saying something), I asked my companion if he knew anybody named Paulling. 

 "There's two families of that name hereabouts," he replied. 

 "My Paullings," I hazarded, "are retiring people, don't make friends, and are away a good deal." 

 "Ah, they'd be the Paullings of Bayview Farm!" returned the driver. "There's no others answer that description around here that I ever heard of, and I've lived at Sandy Plain since before the commuters discovered it." 

 "Yes, I mean the Paullings of Bayview Farm," I caught him up. 

 "The farm's about a mile and a half past Roselawn Hotel," my seat mate went on.  "I can take you there after I drop the other folks." 

 I thanked him and said he might come back for me if he cared to after I had dined, and inquired casually if the Paullings were staying at their farm just then. 

 The driver shook his head. He didn't know. Few persons did know much about the Paullings, who weren't old residents, but had rented Bayview Farm two or three years ago. Maybe the hotel folks might be able to tell me whether I was likely to find them. 

 They could not do so, I soon learned. Mr. Paulling was said to be an invalid, though he never called in the local 

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