PURSUING A WILL-O'-THE-WISP

Aunt Sarah and the girls were much annoyed and their annoyance did not
grow less when, after a half-hour of diagnosis, the chauffeur emerged,
grease-stained and exhausted from under the car, shaking his head. He
frankly admitted that his worm's eye view had failed to enlighten him as
to the trouble. Aunt Sarah turned upon me eyes mirroring a faith
sufficient to move even stalled motor cars.

"I am sure, my dear," she said, sweetly, "your mechanical aptitude can
find a remedy for this difficulty."

It was, of course, an order to burrow into the confined space between
the road bed and the bottom of the car, and of course I burrowed. For a
time I was out of touch with all matters transpiring in the great outer
world, but finally I saw the inverted face of our chauffeur gazing in
upon me and heard his bellowing voice. I have hitherto neglected to
mention that our chauffeur was neither French nor Italian, but Irish.
He was, in fact, an excellent fellow, and the only member of our party
whom I found companionable.

"Sure, sor," he yelled, "there's another car in trouble just around th'
turn av' th' road."

I supposed that he was imparting this information only out of the
assumption that misery loves company, and inasmuch as my reply was
profane, it need not be quoted. In a moment more, however, his grinning
visage reappeared at the road level. "They wants to know if you can't be
afther lending 'em a tire-iron?"

"What do they think this is?" I roared back, squirming far enough to
clear my face for utterance, but not far enough to see what was going
on. "This isn't a repair crew."

It was hardly a gracious response to a fellow motorist in trouble, but
my point of view was oppressed with the weight of a paralyzed car, and
Aunt Sarah and the girls, and I was misanthropic to the degree of
sourness. From my position whatever conversation ensued was merely an
incoherent babble of voices. Palpably, despite my discourtesy, Mr.
Flannery had supplied the inquirers with whatever they needed, and they
had gone their way. I, in the course of the next few minutes, emerged
from my hedge-hog isolation, tinkered with the carburetor, and crawled
back again into concealment. Then someone returned the borrowed
tire-iron. I did not have the opportunity to speak to the Someone, and I
should not have seen the Someone at all had I not happened to catch the
shouted words of Mr. Flannery. Mr. Flannery had so acc