any such terms as non-collidable, non-turnoverable, or
non-waltz-down-the-hillable. Nor did they spare him the patriarchal
jokes about the ubiquitous Ford. They talked about the rising cost of
gasoline which brought John D. in for a share of wholesome abuse. At the
mention of John D. everybody turned to golf and Skinner got that
delightful recreation _ad infinitum, ad nauseam_.

Skinner felt that this talk about machines was only to impress others
with the talkers' motor lore. For familiarity with motor lore means a
certain social status. It is part of the smart vernacular of to-day.
Any man who can own a car has at least mounted a few steps on the social
ladder. The next thing to owning a car is to be able to talk about a
car, for if a man can talk well about a machine everybody 'll think that
he must have had a vast experience in that line and, therefore, must be a
man of affairs.

Girls chattered about autos, not to give the impression that they owned
them, but that they had many friends who owned them, that they were
greatly in demand as auto companions--thus vicariously establishing their
own social status.

There was something fraternal about it, Skinner thought, like golf. The
conceit occurred to him that it would be a good scheme to get up a
booklet full of glib automobile, golf, and bridge chatter, to be
committed to memory, and mark it, "How to Bluff One's Way into Society."
It might have a wide sale.

Skinner suddenly realized that his thoughts were a dark, minor chord in
the general light-hearted chatter, for he cordially hated the whole
blooming business of automobiles, golf, and bridge. He was the raven at
the feast. Everybody seemed to be talking to somebody else. Only he was
alone. He wondered why he had not been a better "mixer." Several of the
boys in Meadeville that he knew of had got better positions through the
friendship of their fellow commuters, because they were good "mixers,"
good chatterers.

There was Lewis, for instance, who was just going into the Pullman with
Robertson, the banker. Lewis was nothing but a social froth-juggler. He
had n't half Skinner's ability, yet he was going around with the rich.
Cheek--that was it--nothing but cheek that did it. Skinner detested
cheek, yet Lewis had capitalized it. The result was a fine house and
servants and an automobile for the man who used to walk in the slush with
Skinner behind other men's cars and take either their mud or t