needs more of that gasoline stuff." He raised the cushion of the front
seat and unscrewed a cap. "We might try that," he suggested, brightly.
"This tank looks like she's empty."

"Try it," said Sharon, and the incredulous Elihu Titus was dispatched to
the village for a five-gallon tin of the gasoline stuff. Elihu was
incredulous, because in Newbern gasoline was until now something that
women cleaned white gloves with. But when the tank was replenished the
car came again to life, throbbing buoyantly.

"I'll be switched!" said Sharon.

A day later he was telling that his new car had broke down on him, but
Buck Cowan had taken her all apart and found out the trouble in no time,
and put her gizzard and lights and liver back as good as new. And Buck
Cowan himself came to feel quite unjustifiably a creator's pride in the
car. It was only his due that Sharon should let him operate it; perhaps
natural that Sharon should prefer him to. Sharon himself was never to
become an accomplished chauffeur. He couldn't learn to relax at the
wheel.

So it was that the boy was tossed to public eminence on a day when
Starling Tucker, accomplished horseman, descended into the vale of
ignominy by means of the Mansion House's new motor bus. Starling had
permitted the selling agents to instruct him briefly in the operation of
the new bus, though with lordly condescension, for it was his conviction
that a man who could tame wild horses and drive anything that wore hair
could by no means fail to guide a bit of machinery that wouldn't r'ar
and run even if a newspaper blew across its face. He mounted the seat,
on his first essay alone, with the jauntiness becoming a master of
vehicular propulsion. There may have been in his secret heart a bit of
trepidation, now that the instructor was not there. In fact, one of the
assembled villagers who closely observed his demeanour related afterward
that Star's face was froze and that he had hooked onto the wheel like he
was choking it to death. But the shining structure had glided off toward
the depot, its driver's head rigid, his glance strained upon the road's
centre. As it moved away Wilbur Cowan leaped to the rear steps and was
carried with it. He had almost asked Starling Tucker for the privilege
of a seat beside him, but the occasion was really too great.

Five blocks down Geneseo Street Starling had turned out to permit the
passing of Trimble Cushman's loaded dray--and he had inexplicably,
terribly