sland, as I wanted to take a glance at
it,--for we must have been hittin' fifty an hour, with the engine runnin'
as smooth and sweet as a French clock,--when all of a sudden there's a
bang like bustin' a paper bag, and we feels the car sag down on one
side.

"_Sacre!_" says Renee through his front teeth.

"Ha, ha!" sings out Pinckney. "My first blow-out!"

"Glad you feel so happy over it," says I.

It's a sensation that don't bring much joy, as a rule. Here you are,
skimmin' along through the country, glancin' at things sort of casual,
same's you do from a Pullman window, but not takin' any int'rest in the
scenery except in a general way, only wonderin' now and then how it is
people happen to live in places so far away.

And then all in a minute the scenery ain't movin' past you at all. It
stops dead in its tracks, like when the film of a movin' picture machine
gets tangled up, and there's only one partic'lar scene to look at. It's
mighty curious, too, how quick that special spot loses its charm. Also,
as a gen'ral rule, such things happen just at the wrong spot in the road.
Now we'd been sailin' along over a ridge, where we could look out across
Narragansett Bay for miles; but here where our tire had gone on the blink
was a kind of dip down between the hills, with no view at all.

First off we all has to pile out and get in Renee's way while he inspects
the damage. It's a blow-out for fair, a hole big enough to lay your two
hands in, right across the tread, where we'd picked up a broken bottle,
or maybe a cast horseshoe with the nails in it. Then, while he proceeds
to get busy with the jack and tire irons, we all makes up our minds to a
good long wait; for when you tackle one of them big boys, with the rims
rusted in, it ain't any fifteen-minute picnic, you know.

Course, Pinckney gets out his fireless bottles and the glasses and
improves the time by handin' around somethin' soothin' or cheerin',
accordin' to taste. Not bein' thirsty, I begins inspectin' the contagious
scenery. It wa'n't anything an artist would yearn to paint. Just back
from the road is a sort of shack that looks as though someone might be
campin' out in it, and behind that a mess of rough sheds and chicken
coops.

Next I discovers that the object down in the field which I'd taken for a
scarecrow was a live man. By the motions he's goin' through, he's diggin'
potatoes, and from the way he sticks to it, not payin' any attention to
us, it seems