there is a very
steep descent to the Connecticut River, which is a broad estuary
at that point. The ferry is a primitive side-wheeler, which might
carry two automobiles, but hardly more. It happened to be on the
far shore. A small boy pointed out a long tin horn hanging on a
post, the hoarse blast of which summons the sleepy boat.

There was no landing, and it seemed impossible for our vehicle to
get aboard; but the boat had a long shovel-like nose projecting
from the bow which ran upon the shore, making a perfect
gang-plank.

Carefully balancing the automobile in the centre so as not to list
the primitive craft, we made our way deliberately to the other
side, the entire crew of two men--engineer and captain--coming out
to talk with us.

The ferries at Lyme and New London would prove great obstacles to
anything like a club from New York to Newport along this road; the
day would be spent in getting machines across the two rivers.

It was dark when we ran into the city. This particular visit to
New Haven is chiefly memorable for the exceeding good manners of a
boy of ten, who watched the machine next morning as it was
prepared for the day's ride, offered to act as guide to the place
where gasoline was kept, and, with the grace of a Chesterfield,
made good my delinquent purse by paying the bill. It was all
charmingly and not precociously done. This little man was well
brought up,--so well brought up that he did not know it.

The automobile is a pretty fair touchstone to manners for both
young and old. A man is himself in the presence of the unexpected.
The automobile is so strange that it carries people off their
equilibrium, and they say and do things impulsively, and therefore
naturally.

The odd-looking stranger is ever treated with scant courtesy and
unbecoming curiosity; the strange machine fares no better. The man
or the boy who is not unduly curious, not unduly aggressive, not
unduly loquacious, not unduly insistent, who preserves his poise
in the presence of an automobile, is quite out of the ordinary,--
my little New Haven friend was of that sort.

It is a beautiful ride from New Haven to New York, and to it we
devoted the entire day, from half-past eight until half-past
seven.

At Norwalk the people were celebrating the two hundred and
fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the town; the hotel where
we dined may have antedated the town a century or two.

Later in the afternoon, while wheeling along