he coil; but it is so
seldom a coil goes wrong that everything was looked over, but no
spark of any size was to be had, therefore there was nothing to do
but cast about for a place to spend the night, for it was then
dark.

As good luck would have it, we were almost in front of a large,
comfortable, old-fashioned house where they took summer boarders;
as the season was drawing to a close, there was plenty of room and
they were glad to take us in. The machine was pushed into a shed,
everybody assisting with the readiness ever characteristic of
sympathetic on-lookers.

The big, clean, white rooms were most inviting; the homely New
England supper of cold meats and hot rolls seemed under the
circumstances a feast for a king, and as we sat in front of the
house in the evening, and looked across the highway to a little
lake just beyond and heard the croaking of the frogs, the chirping
of crickets, and the many indistinguishable sounds of night, we
were not sorry the machine had played us false exactly when and
where it did.

The automobile plays into the hands of Morpheus, the drowsy god
follows in its wake, sure of his victims. No sleep is dreamless.
It is pretty difficult to exhaust the three billions of cells of
the central nervous system so that all require rest, but ten hours
on an automobile in the open air, speeding along like the wind
most of the time, will come nearer putting all those cells to
sleep than any exercise heretofore discovered. The fatigue is
normal, pervasive, and persuasive, and it is pretty hard to recall
any dream on waking.

It was Sunday morning, September 1, and raining, a soft, drizzly
downpour, that had evidently begun early in the night and kept up
--or rather down--steadily. It was a good morning to remain
indoors and read; but there was that tantalizing machine challenging
combat; then, too, Worcester was but eighteen or twenty miles
away, and at Worcester we expected to find letters and telegrams.

A young and clever electrician across the way came over, bringing
an electric bell, with which we tested the dry cells, finding them
in good condition. We then examined the connections and ran the
trouble back to the coil. There was plenty of current and plenty
of voltage, but only a little blue spark, which could be obtained
equally well with the coil in or out of the circuit, and yet the
coil did not show a short circuit, but before we finished our
tests the spark suddenly appeared.