, they've got to get to it by themselves.
Edith must keep out of the way. She mustn't take it on herself to ask him
up to the mountains." Roger gave a little start. "If she does, there'll be
trouble with Deborah."

Roger smoked for a moment in silence and then sagely nodded his head.

"That's so," he murmured thoughtfully. "Yes, my boy, I guess you're right."

Bruce lifted his mint julep:

"God, but it's hot in here to-night. How about taking a spin up the river?"

"Delighted," replied his father-in-law.

And a half hour later in Bruce's new car, which was the pride and joy of
his life, they were far up the river. On a long level stretch of road Bruce
"let her out to show what she could do." And Roger with his heart in his
mouth and his eye upon the speedometer, saw it creep to sixty-three.

"Almost as good as a horse," remarked Bruce, when the car had slowed a
little.

"Almost," said Roger, "but not quite. It's--well, it's dissipation."

"And a horse?"

"Is life," was the grave reply. "You'll have a crash some day, my boy, if
you go on at your present speed. It gets me worried sometimes. You see
you're a family man."

"I am and I'm glad of it. Edith and the kiddies suit me right down to the
ground. I'm crazy about 'em--you know that. But a chap with a job like
mine," Bruce continued pleadingly, as he drove his car rushing around a
curve, "needs a little dissipation, too. I can't tell you what it means to
me, when I'm kept late at the office, to have this car for the run up home.
Lower Broadway's empty then, and I know the cops. I swing around through
Washington Square, and the Avenue looks clear for miles, nothing but two
long rows of lights to the big hump at Murray Hill. It's the time between
crowds--say about ten. And I know the cops."

"That's all right," said Roger. "No one was more delighted than I when you
got this car. You deserve it. It's the _work_ that I was speaking of.
You've got it going at such a speed--"

"Only way on earth to get on--to get what I want for my family--"

"Yes, yes, I know," muttered Roger vaguely. Bruce began talking of his work
for the steel construction concern downtown.

"Take it from me," he declared at the end, "this town has only just begun!"

"Has, eh," Roger grunted. "Aren't the buildings high enough?"

"My God, I wish they were twenty times higher," Bruce rejoined
good-humoredly. "But they won't be--we've stopped going up. We've done
pretty well in the air, a