e got it by the throat?"

"That's just what--little girl!" he cried, with a ring of pride. "You
see, I'm an inventor and I won a little pile on my first trick. I've got
a machine-shop in a room eight-by-ten over on the East Side."

"A machine-shop all your own?"

"Yep."

"I'd like to see it some day."

He shook his head emphatically.

"It's too dirty. I couldn't let a pretty girl like you in such a place."
He paused and resumed the tone of his narrative where she interrupted
him. "You see, I've just put a new crimp in a carburetor for the
automobile folks. They're tickled to death over it and I've got
automobiles to burn. Will you go to ride with me tomorrow?"

The teacher broke into a joyous laugh.

"Why do you laugh?" he asked awkwardly.

"Well, in the language of New York, that would be going some, wouldn't
it?"

"And why not, I'd like to know?" he cried with scorn. "Who's to tell us
we can't? You've no kids to bother you tomorrow. I'm my own boss. You've
seen Asheville, but you've never seen New York until you sit down beside
me in a big six-cylinder racing car I'm handlin' next week. Let me
show it to you. I'll swing her around to your door at eight o'clock. In
twenty-five minutes we'll clear the Bronx and shoot into New Rochelle.
There'll be no cops out to bother us, and not a wheel in sight. It'll do
you good. Let me take you! I owe you that much for bein' so nice to me
today. Will you go with me?"

Mary hesitated.

"I'll think it over and let you know."

"Got a telephone?"

"No."

"Then you'll have to tell me before I go--won't you?"

"I suppose so," she answered demurely.

They passed the big fountain beyond the Mall and skirted the lake to
the bridge, crossed, walked along the water's edge to the laurel-covered
crags and found a seat alone in the summer house that hides among the
trees on its highest point.

The roar of the city was dim and far away. The only sounds to break
the stillness were the laughter of lovers along the walks below and the
distant cry of steamers in the harbor and rivers.

"You'd almost think you're in the mountains up here, now wouldn't you?"
he asked, after a moment's silence.

"Yes. I call this park my country estate. It costs me nothing to keep it
in perfect order. The city pays for it all. But I own it. Every tree and
shrub and flower and blade of grass, every statue and bird and animal in
it is mine. I couldn't get more joy out of them if I had them inclo