apt pupil. At the end of
an apprenticeship covering a fortnight he matriculated into a regular
driver, with a badge and a cap to prove it and a place on the night
shift. Red Hoss felt impressive, and bore himself accordingly. He began
taking sharp turns on two wheels. He took one such turn too many. On
Friday night of his first week as a graduate chauffeur he steered his
car headlong into a smash-up from which she emerged with a dished front
wheel and a permanent marcel wave in one fender. As he nursed the
cripple back to the garage Red Hoss exercised an imagination which never
yet had failed him, and fabricated an explanation so plausibly shaped
and phrased as to absolve him of all blameful responsibility for the
mishap.

Mr. Farrell listened to and accepted this account of the accident with
no more than a passing exhibition of natural irritation; but next
morning when Attorney Sublette called, accompanied by an irate client
with a claim for damages sustained to a market wagon, and bringing with
him also the testimony of at least two disinterested eye-witnesses to
prove upon whose shoulders the fault must rest, Mr. Farrell somewhat
lost his customary air of sustained calm. Cursing softly under his
breath, he settled on the spot with a cash compromise; and then calling
the offender to his presence, he used strong and bitter words.

"Look here, boy," he proclaimed, "I've let you off this time with a
cussing, but next time anything happens to a car that you are driving
you've got to come clean with me. It ain't to be expected that a lot of
crazy darkies can go sky-hooting round this town driving pot-metal
omnibuses for me without one of them getting in a smash-up about every
so often, and I'm carrying accident insurance and liability insurance to
cover my risks; but next time you get into a jam I want you to come
through with the absolute facts in the case, so's I'll know where I
stand and how to protect myself in court or out of it. I don't care two
bits whose fault it is--your fault or some other lunatic's fault. The
truth is what I want--the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the
truth, so help you God. And He'll need to help you if I catch you lying
again! Get me?"

"Boss," said Red Hoss fervently, "I gits you."

Two nights later the greater disaster befell. It was a thick, drizzly,
muggy night, when the foreground of one's perspective was blurred by the
murk and when there just naturally was not any backgrou