ard to
a rigid stoop of astonishment. His mouth opened. He gasped as they ran
to join the gathering crowd.

"A horseless carriage! Do you get that? There's one _here_!" He
touched the bonnet of the two-cylinder 1901 car, and worshiped. "Under
there--the engine! And there's where you steer.... I _will_ own
one!... Gee! you're right, Fatty; I believe I will go to college. And
then I'll study mechanical engineering."

"Thought you said you were going to try and go to Annapolis and be a
sailor."

"No. Rats! I'm going to own a horseless carriage, and I'm going to
tour every state in the Union.... Think of seeing mountains! And the
ocean! And going twenty miles an hour, like a train!"

CHAPTER IV

While Carl prepared for Gertie Cowles's party by pressing his trousers
with his mother's flat-iron, while he blacked his shoes and took his
weekly sponge-bath, he was perturbed by partisanship with Eddie Klemm,
and a longing for the world of motors, and some anxiety as to how he
could dance at the party when he could not dance.

He clumped up the new stone steps of the Cowles house carelessly, not
unusually shy, ready to tell Gertie what he thought of her treatment
of Eddie. Then the front door opened and an agonized Carl was
smothered in politeness. His second cousin, Lena, the Cowleses' "hired
girl," was opening the door, stiff and uncomfortable in a cap, a black
dress, and a small frilly apron that dangled on her boniness like a
lace kerchief pinned on a broom-handle. Murray Cowles rushed up. He
was in evening clothes!

Behind Murray, Mrs. Cowles greeted Carl with thawed majesty: "We are
so glad to have you, Carl. Won't you take your things off in the room
at the head of the stairs?"

An affable introduction to Howard Griffin (also in evening clothes)
was poured on Carl like soothing balm. Said Griffin: "Mighty glad to
meet you, Ericson. Ray told me you'd make a ripping sprinter. The
captain of the track team 'll be on the lookout for you when you get
to Plato. Course you're going to go there. The U. of Minn. is too
big.... You'll _do_ something for old Plato. Wish I could. But all I
can do is warble like a darn' dicky-bird. Have a cigarette?... They're
just starting to dance. Come on, old man. Come on, Ray."

Carl was drawn down-stairs and instantly precipitated into a dance
regarding which he was sure only that it was either a waltz, a
two-step, or something else. It filled with glamour the Cowles
library--