way they treat us. Mrs. Black
says there is everything in a first impression. If people judge by your
looks that you're no account they'll treat you that way. But what were
you and the driver having such a talk about?"

Captain Dan grinned. "I got the name of the hotel wrong at first," he
admitted. "I called it the Palestine House instead of the other thing.
The driver thought I was makin' fun of him. It ain't safe to mention
Palestine to a feller with a nose like that."

The Palatine House was new and gorgeous; built in the hope of attracting
touring automobilists, it was that dreary mistake, a cheap imitation of
the swagger metropolitan article. Scarford was not a metropolis, and
the imitation in this case was a particularly poor one. However, to the
Dotts, its marble-floored lobby and gilded pillars and cornices were
grand and imposing. Their room on the third floor looked out upon the
street below, and if the view of shops and signs and trucks and trolleys
was not beautiful it was, at least, distinctly different from any view
in Trumet.

Serena gloried in it.

"Ah!" she sighed, "this is something like. THIS is life! There's
something going on here, Daniel. Don't you feel it?"

Daniel was counting his small change.

"What say?" he asked.

His wife repeated her question, raising her voice to carry above the
noises of the street.

"Feel it! Yes, yes; and hear it, too. How we're ever goin' to sleep with
all that hullabaloo outside I don't know. Don't you suppose we could get
a quieter room than this, Serena?"

"I don't want a quiet room. I don't want to sleep. I feel as if I'd been
asleep all my life. Now, thank goodness, I am where people are really
awake. What are you doing with that money?"

"Oh, just lookin' at it, while I can. I shan't have the chance very
long, if the other folks in this town are like that hack driver. A
dollar to drive half a mile in that hearse! Why, the whole shebang
wa'n't worth more than two dollars, to buy. And then he had the cheek to
ask me to give him 'a quarter for himself.'"

"Yes, that was his tip. We must expect that. Gertrude says she always
has to tip the servants and drivers and such at college. Did you give it
to him?"

"Who? Me? I told him I was collectin' for a museum, and I'd give him a
quarter for the horse, just as it stood--or WHILE it stood. I said he'd
better take the offer pretty quick because the critter looked as if
'twould lay down most any minute."