Rensselaer stared in the dark. He did not know there were coats for twenty-seven fifty.

“Nice coat,” he said nonchalantly. “How’d you like to exchange? I’m going away tonight on a little trip and I’m afraid I couldn’t take the time to come back, and I wouldn’t have time to wait to have it mended. I do hate to go with a torn coat, too.”

“H’m!” said the man with a catch in his breath as if he could not believe his ears, but he did not mean to let anybody know it. “But that wouldn’t be altogether fair. Your coat is lined with fur. It must have cost most fifty dollars.”

“Oh, well, I’ve had it some time, you know, and your coat is new; that squares it all up. I’m satisfied if you are.”

“It’s a bargain!” said the man, stopping his car with alacrity, beginning to unbutton his overcoat. A bargain like that had better be taken up before the young gentleman repented of his offer.

Murray Van Rensselaer divested himself of his expensive coat and crawled into the harsh gray coat of the stranger, and said to himself eagerly, “Now I’m becoming a new man,” but he shivered as the car shot forward and the chill air struck through him. Fur lining did make a difference. It never occurred to him before that there were men who could not have fur coats when they needed them for comfort. And now he was one of those men! How astonishing!

[Pg 45]

[Pg 45]

The new owner of the fur coat decided that it would be wise not to take the strange young man to his house. He would drop him at the first garage, which was a mile and a half nearer than his home. Then if he repented of his exchange he could not possibly hunt him up and demand his coat back again. So the young man was set down in the night before a little garage on the outskirts of town and the Ford disappeared into the darkness, its tail light winking cunningly, and whisking out of sight at the first corner. No chance for that fur coat to ever meet up with its former owner again. And Murray Van Rensselaer stood shivering in the road, waiting till his companion was out of sight that he too might vanish in another direction. He had no use for a garage, and he groaned in his spirit over the thought of walking further with those infernally tight shoes. He almost had a wild notion of taking them off and going barefoot for a while.

Then suddenly a brilliant headlight mounted the hill at the top of the road and a motorcycle 

 Prev. P 25/187 next