ere was in her, but the bulky figure that filled to overflowing the
side car, rode with his head well back.

At every irregularity in the road, the bathtub contraption bounced on
its springs, bow and stern rising and falling like a small ship in a
rough sea. Its nearer approach revealed that the giant torso apparent
above its rim was encased in a double breasted khaki garment which might
have marked the wearer as either the master of a four in hand or a
Mississippi steamboat of the antebellum type. The enormous shoulders,
thus draped, were surmounted by a huge head, which by reason of its
rigid, backward, star-gazing position appeared mostly as chin and double
chin. The whole was topped by a huge fat cigar which sprouted upward
from the elevated chin and at times gave forth clouds like the forward
smoke-stack on the _Robert E. Lee_.

I was trying to decide in my mind whether the elevated chin posture of
the passenger was the result of pride, bravado or a boil on the Adam's
apple, when the scudding comet reached the shelter of the protecting
bank in which was located the chiselled dog kennel that I occupied. As
the machine came to halt, the superior chin depressed itself ninety
degrees, and brought into view the smiling features of that smile-making
gentleman from Paducah--Mr. Irvin S. Cobb. Machine, rider and passenger
stopped for breath and I made bold to ask the intrepid humourist if he
suffered from a too keen sense of smell or a saw edge collar.

"I haven't a sensitive nose, a saw edge collar or an inordinate
admiration for clouds," the creator of Judge Priest explained with
reference to his former stiff-necked pose, "but George here," waving to
the driver, "took a sudden inspiration for fast movement. The jolt
almost took my head off and the wind kept me from getting it back into
position. George stuck his spurs into this here flying bootblack stand
just about the time something landed near us that sounded like a kitchen
stove half loaded with window weights and window panes. I think George
made a record for this road. I've named it Buh-Looey Boulevard."

When the strafing subsided we parted and I reached the next deserted
town without incident. It was almost the vesper hour or what had been
the allotted time for that rite in those parts when I entered the yard
of the village church, located in an exposed position at a cross roads
on the edge of the town. A sudden unmistakable whirr sounded above and I
threw mys