and have to pay for
them, too. Lately the latter class has begun to feel itself abused and
has been grumbling a little, but we overlook it. No appeal to prejudice
and jealousy can move us. Of course, I don't think that an automobile
owner should be expected to leave his wife at home in order to
accommodate his neighbors, and there may be some just complaint when an
owner is called up late at night and asked to haul friends home from a
party to which he hasn't been invited. But on the whole the automobile
owners are very well treated. Suppose we spectators should band together
and refuse to ride in the things or talk about them! The market would
be glutted with second-hand cars in a month.

We have no trouble with the speed limit in Homeburg either. This may be
due partly to our good sense, but it is mostly due to our peculiar
crossings. Homeburg is paved with rich black dirt, and in order to keep
the populace out of the bosom of the soil in the muddy seasons, the
brick crossings are built high and solid, forming a series of
impregnable "thank-ye-marms" all over the town. One of our great
diversions during the tourist season is to watch the reckless strangers
from some other State dash madly into town at forty miles an hour and
hit the crossing at the head of Main Street. There is a crash and a
scream as the occupants of the tonneau soar gracefully into the top.
There is another crash and more screams at the other side of the street,
and before the driver has diagnosed the case, he has hit the Exchange
Street crossing, which sticks out like the Reef of Norman's Woe. When
he has landed on the other side of this crossing, he slows down and goes
meekly out of town at ten miles an hour, while we saunter forth and pick
up small objects of value such as wrenches, luncheon baskets, hairpins,
hats, and passengers.

Last summer we picked up an oldish man who had been thrown out of an
unusually jambangsome touring car. He had been traveling in the tonneau
alone, and even before he met our town he had not been enjoying himself.
The driver and his accomplice had not noticed their loss, and when we
had brushed off and restored the old gentleman, he said "Thank God!" and
went firmly over to the depot, where he took the next train for home,
leaving no word behind in case his friends should return--which they did
that afternoon and searched mournfully at a snail's pace for over twenty
miles on both sides of our town.

Since the auto