says I, lollin' back luxurious. 'This is fine, ain't it?'

"'Cost seventy-five hundred to build,' he says, casual. 'Made to order
for the boss. Lightest car of her speed ever turned out.'

"'Go 'way! How you talk! Seventy-five hundred what? Not dollars?'

"'Sure,' he says. Then he turns round--he was in the bow, hangin' on to
the steerin'-wheel--and looks me over, kind of interested, but superior.
'Say,' he says, 'I've been hearin' things about you. You're a hero,
ain't you?'

"Durn them Orham gabblers! Ever sence I hauled that crew of seasick
summer boarders out of the drink a couple of years ago and the gov'ment
gave me a medal, the minister and some more of his gang have painted out
the name I was launched under and had me entered on the shippin'-list as
'The Hero.' I've licked two or three for callin' me that, but I can't
lick a parson, and he was the one that told Billings.

"'Oh, I don't know!' I answers, pretty sharp. 'Get her under way, why
don't you?'

"All he done was look me over some more and grin.

"'A hero! A real, live gov'ment-branded hero!' he says. 'Ain't scared of
nothin', I reckon--hey?'

"I never made no answer. There's some things that's too fresh to eat
without salt, and I didn't have a pickle-tub handy.

"'Hum!' he says again, reverend-like. 'A sure hero; scared of nothin'!
Never rode in an auto afore, did you?'

"'No,' says I, peppery; 'and I don't see no present symptoms of ridin'
in one now. Cast off, won't you?'

"He cast off. That is to say, he hauled a nickel-plated marlinspike
thing towards him, shoved another one away from him, took a twist on the
steerin'-wheel, the go-cart coughed like a horse with the heaves,
started up some sort of buzz-planer underneath, and then we begun to
move.

"From the time we left my shanty at South Orham till we passed the pines
at Herrin' Neck I laid back in that stuffed cockpit, feelin' as grand
and tainted as old John D. himself. The automobile rolled along smooth
but swift, and it seemed to me I had never known what easy trav'lin' was
afore. As we rounded the bend by the pines and opened up the twelve-mile
narrow white stretch of Setuckit Beach ahead of us, with the ocean on
one side and the bay on t'other, I looked at my watch. We'd come that
fur in thirteen minutes.

"'Land sakes!' I says. 'This is what I call movin' right along!'

"He turned round and sized me up again, like he was surprised.

"'Movin'?' says he. 'Movin'? Why, pard,