little mile-eater has
an electric gear shift, and I want to ask the chauffeur how he likes it.
Promised Ad Summers I would.

... Says it hangs a little if his voltage is low. That's what I'd be
afraid of--Gee! there's a new Jacksnipe with a center searchlight. Never
would do for rutty roads. How do you like the wire wheels, Jim? Bad for
side strains, I should think. Look at those foxy inset lamps. Listen to
that engine purr--two cycle, I'll bet. Say, Fifth Avenue is certainly
one great street! I could walk up and down here for a month. There's a
new Battleax--wonder if those two speed differentials are going to work
out.

All right, Jim, I'll reluctantly shut up and focus my attention on the
salmon-colored cloaks and green stockings for a while. I forgot that you
don't take any deep, abiding interest in automobiles. All they mean to
you is something to ride in, but to me they're as interesting as a new
magazine. I've spent about four days in the sales-rooms since I've been
here, and when I get home I'll be the center of breathless attention
until I've passed around all the information I've dug up. I could go
back without any information about the new shows, or the city campaign,
but if I were to come back without a bale of automobile gossip, I'd be
fired for gross incompetency from the League of Amateur Advisers at
Gayley's garage.

You thought I said I didn't own a machine? I did say it and I can prove
it. But do you suppose that makes any difference in Homeburg? Here the
other fellow's car is his own business. But in Homeburg an automobile is
every one's business. It's like the weekly newspaper, or the new
minister, or the latest wedding--it's common property. Since gasoline
has been domesticated we're all enthusiasts, whether we are customers or
not. The man who can't talk automobile is as lonely as the chap who
can't play golf at a country club. About all there is left for him to do
is to hunt up Postmaster Flint and talk politics. Flint has to talk all
our politics; it's what he's paid for, but it's mighty hard on him
because he just bought a new machine last spring himself.

No, you guessed wrong, Jim. Automobiles aren't a curiosity in Homeburg.
How many are there in New York? Say eighty thousand. One for every sixty
people. Homeburg has twenty-five hundred people and one hundred
machines, counting Sim Askinson's old one-lunger and Red Nolan's refined
corn sheller, which he built out of the bone-yard back of