struggle into a _demitallieur,_ which is French for any
lady's suit costing over sixty dollars, and get to the auto school by
the time the lady lieutenant had told them to expect me.

Oh, that auto school! The torture chambers of this here Castle of
Chillon has nothing on it and--believe you me--the first set of tools a
person going into it needs is a manicure set. The next thing they need
is a good memory, the kind which can get a twelve-hundred-line part
overnight; which no dancer can nor is ever supposed to!

One thing I will say for that school, though--they was not such a
ill-informed lot as the Automobile Service. From the very minute I set
foot inside the place they knew who I was, and the manager give me the
pick of half a dozen young fellows who was just filled with patriotic
longing to help me qualify for the service.

After giving them the once over I finally decided on one lean-looking
bird, who seemed married, and quiet, and likely to teach me something
about the insides of an auto, instead of asking me questions about the
steps of the Teatime Tango Trot, and did I feel the same in my make-up?

Well, the first thing this bird asks me is do I know anything about a
car? And I says, know what? And he says, well, can I name the parts of a
car? And I says, yes; and he says for me to name them. So I says color,
lining, flower holder, clock, speaking tube and chauffeur.

Well, the bird says so far correct; but that wasn't enough, and he
guessed we better begin at the more fundamental parts and would I just
step inside?

Well, it seems this auto school undertakes to teach you everything about
a car from the paint on the body to the appendix, or magneto, as it is
called, in twenty lessons; which is like trying to teach the Teatime
Tango Trot, with three hand-springs and twenty whirls round your
partner's neck, by mail for five dollars. Which is to say it can't be
done.

First off, the instructor hands you a bunch of yellow papers with a lot
of typewriting on them--twenty sheets in all, or one per lesson, and
all you got to do is learn them good and then put into practice what you
learn; and after that what you can't do to a car would fill a book!

Well, after you grab this sheaf of stage bank notes you look at number
one and follow the bird that's teaching you round the room while he
reels it off. I guess the idea of you holding the paper is to check him
up if he makes a mistake. Anyways, this bird let me in