atcher.

"You've been here for almost a week, Corrie. Don't you feel like getting
to work?" queried Gerard's pleasant tones.

The boy swung around eagerly.

"Yes," he welcomed. "Give me something to do, anything."

Gerard nodded, his amber eyes sweeping courtyard and track until,
finding the man he sought, he lifted a summoning finger.

"Have someone bring out my six-ninety, Rupert," he called across. "Right
away." And to his companion, "Get into some warm things; you will find
it cold, driving."

Corrie stiffened, flushing painfully and catching his lip in his white
teeth.

"Gerard, you mean _me_ to drive?"

"Of course."

"I shall never drive a car again."

"You will drive the six-ninety Mercury for six hours a day, every day,"
Gerard corrected explicitly. "Until I get the big special racer built,
and then you will drive it. You are going to work into the finest kind
of training and drive until you can drive in your sleep. Too bad the
winter is shutting in, but that will not stop you any more than it does
the testers. In fact, driving in the snow is good practice."

Helpless, Corrie looked at the other man, his violet-blue eyes almost
black with repressed feeling.

"Gerard, you must know how I want to; don't ask me! You know how I ache
to get ahold of a wheel, but I've forfeited all that."

"You have placed yourself in my factory, under my orders," Gerard
stated, with curt finality. "While you are here you will do what I tell
you to do, precisely as does every other worker; precisely as does
Rupert, for example, who is really tester at the eastern plant and
ordinarily works under its master, David French. I have decided to give
you a branch of the work that I once planned to do myself and now
cannot. Go into the office and put on your driving togs."

"I ain't expecting to shove this ninety through a letter-slot,"
remonstrated caustic accents from across the busy courtyard. "Move over,
girls, you're crowding the aisles! Say, Norris, this ain't a joy-ride
down Riverside Drive, it's a testing run; reverse over there and take
about six more sachet-bags of mud-pie aboard where your tonneau ain't,
before you start. Don't it hurt you bad to hurry like that, you
fellows?"

There was a drawing aside by the cars opposite a wide door, and the
machine guided by Rupert rolled through, winding a devious course toward
where its owner waited. Without a word, Corrie turned and went into the
office.

Gerard remaine