y will forget to mention it, I am Miss McLeod. He persuaded
me at the last minute to come with him in this crazy machine."

"Oh, I say, Ann!" protests Barry. "Not so rough, please. You've no
notion how sensitive Adelbaran is to unkind criticism. Besides, he's
brought us safely so far, hasn't he?"

Ann shrugs her shoulders and moves over to make room for me. "If you can
make another fifty miles in it I shall almost believe in miracles," says
she.

"And in me too, I trust," says Barry. "Hearest thou, Adelbaran? Then on,
on, pride of the desert! The women are singing in the tents and--and all
that sort of thing. Ho, ho! for the roaring road!"

He's some classy little driver, Barry. Inside of a hundred yards he has
her doin' better than twenty-six on an up grade over a dirt road
sprinkled free with rocks and waterbreaks. Slam bang, bumpety-bump,
ding-dong we go, with more jingles and squeaks and rattles than a junk
cart rollin' off a roof.

"Don't mind a few little noises," says Miss McLeod. "Barry doesn't. A
loose fender or a worn roller bearing means nothing to him. Why, he
started with a cracked spark-plug that was spitting like a tom-cat, the
carburetor popping from too lean a mixture, and a half filled radiator
boiling away merrily. It was stopping to get those things fixed up, and
having some air pumped into the spare tire, that made us so late."

"You see!" says Barry. "She admits it. Wonderful girl though, Ann. She
can tell at a glance just what's the matter with anything or anyone.
Take me, for instance; she----"

"Sharp curve ahead, Barry," breaks in Ann.

"Right-o!" says he, takin' it on two wheels and then stepping on the gas
button to rush a hill.

"Lucky we're wedged in tight," says I, "or some of us might be spilled
out."

"Yes," says Miss McLeod, "and Barry never would miss us."

"Cruel words!" says Barry. "How often have I said, Ann, that I miss you
every hour?"

"He's off again," says Ann. "But if you must be sentimental, Barry, I
shall insist on doing the driving myself."

"Squelched!" says Barry. "I'll be good."

Say, they made a great team, them two, when it came to exchangin'
persiflage. It was snappy stuff and it helped a lot towards taking my
mind off Barry's jazz-style drivin'. For he sure does bear down heavy
with his foot. If he plays the organ the way he runs a car I should
think he'd raise the roof. And the speed he gets out of that dinky
little roadster is amazin'. Might have