perceptions as to receive strictly accurate impressions;
therefore, when one man says he went forty miles an hour, and
another says he went sixty, the latter assertion is based not upon
the exact speed,--for that neither knows,--but upon the belief of
the second man that he went much faster than the other. The exact
speeds were probably about ten and fifteen miles an hour
respectively; but the ratio is preserved in forty and sixty, and
the listening layman is deeply impressed, while no one who knows
anything about automobiling is for a moment deceived. At the same
time, in fairness to guests and strangers within the gates, each
club ought to post conspicuously the rate of discount on
narratives, for not only do clubs vary in their departures from
literal truth, but the narratives are greatly affected by seasons
and events; for instance, after the Endurance Contest the discount
rate in the Automobile Club of America was exceedingly high.

Every man who started finished ahead of the others,--except those
who never intended to finish at all. Each man went exactly as far
as he intended to go, and then took the train, road, or ditch
home. Some intended to go as far as Albany, others to Frankfort,
while quite a large number entered the contest for the express
purpose of getting off in the mud and walking to the nearest
village; a few, a very few, intended to go as far as Buffalo.

At one time or another each made a mile a minute, and a much
higher rate of speed would have been maintained throughout had it
not been necessary to identify certain towns in passing. Nothing
happened to any machine, but one or two required a little oiling,
and several were abandoned by the roadside because their occupants
had stubbornly determined to go no farther. One man who confessed
that a set-screw in his goggles worked loose was expelled from the
club as too matter-of-fact to be eligible for membership, and the
maker of the machine he used sent four-page communications to each
trade paper explaining that the loosening of the set-screw was due
to no defect in the machine, but was entirely the fault of the
driver, who jarred the screw loose by winking his eye.

Each machine surmounted Nelson Hill like a bird,--or would have,
if it had not been for the machine in front. There were those who
would have made the hill in forty-two seconds if they had not
wasted valuable time in pushing. The pitiful feat of the man who
crawled up at the rate of