t out and crank her."

Bream emerged for an instant from his trance.

"All right," he said.

The art of cranking a car is one that is not given to all men. Some of
our greatest and wisest stand helpless before the task. It is a job
towards the consummation of which a noble soul and a fine brain help not
at all. A man may have all the other gifts and yet be unable to
accomplish a task which the fellow at the garage does with one quiet
flick of the wrist without even bothering to remove his chewing gum.
This being so, it was not only unkind but foolish of Billie to grow
impatient as Bream's repeated efforts failed of their object. It was
wrong of her to click her tongue, and certainly she ought not to have
told Bream that he was not fit to churn butter. But women are an
emotional sex and must be forgiven much in moments of mental stress.

"Give it a good sharp twist," she said.

"All right," said Bream.

"Here, let me do it," cried Billie.

She jumped down and snatched the thingummy from his hand. With bent
brows and set teeth she wrenched it round. The engine gave a faint
protesting mutter, like a dog that has been disturbed in its sleep, and
was still once more.

"May I help?"

It was not Bream who spoke but a strange voice--a sepulchral voice, the
sort of voice someone would have used in one of Edgar Allen Poe's
cheerful little tales if he had been buried alive and were speaking from
the family vault. Coming suddenly out of the night it affected Bream
painfully. He uttered a sharp exclamation and gave a bound which, if he
had been a Russian dancer would undoubtedly have caused the management
to raise his salary. He was in no frame of mind to bear up under sudden
sepulchral voices.

Billie, on the other hand, was pleased. The high-spirited girl was just
beginning to fear that she was unequal to the task which she had chided
Bream for being unable to perform and this was mortifying her.

"Oh, would you mind? Thank you so much. The self-starter has gone
wrong."

Into the glare of the headlights there stepped a strange figure,
strange, that is to say, in these tame modern times. In the Middle Ages
he would have excited no comment at all. Passers by would simply have
said to themselves, "Ah, another of those knights off after the
dragons!" and would have gone on their way with a civil greeting. But in
the present age it is always somewhat startling to see a helmeted head
pop up in front of your motor car. At