n, "you have the tremendous asset of a magnificent body to
fall back on for comfort."

With a movement of the hand Burns stopped his engine, now running
quietly, and stood up straight. He threw out one bare arm, grimy
and oily with his labours. "Two hours ago," said he in a voice now
controlled and solemn, "if by cutting off that right arm at the shoulder
I could have saved a human life I'd have done it."

"And now," retorted Chester quickly, "now, two hours after--would you
cut it off now?"

Red Pepper looked at him. The arm dropped. "No," said he, "I wouldn't.
Not for a dozen lives like that. I'm not heroic, after all--only hot and
cold by jumps, like a thermometer. But I ache all over, just the same.
She runs like a bird now. Jump in--we'll take a spin and try her out on
the road. I may need her before midnight."

Nothing loth, for he knew the Green Imp and her driver and had had many
a swift run on a moonlight night before in the same company, Chester
took the slim roadster's other seat, watching the long green hood point
the way down the driveway, past the porch where the women, in white
gowns showing coolly in the light from the arc lamp at the corner of the
street, called a goodbye.

"Back--some time," replied Chester's voice, rising above the low purr
of the engine with a note of satisfaction in it. The figure beside him,
still in open, white shirt, with bare arms and uncovered, thick thatch
of red hair, did not turn its head.

"Arthur's never so happy as when he's out with Red in the Green Imp,"
Winifred said to her guest as the roadster shot away under the elms
which drooped beneath the arc light.

"Doctor Burns is certainly the oddest man I ever saw," replied the
guest, swinging idly in the hammock and watching the car out of sight
down the long vista of the village street. "He hasn't given me one real
good look yet. I suppose if I were a patient he would favour me with an
all-seeing gaze out of those Irish-Scotch barbarian eyes of his, but as
it is"--her voice was slightly petulant--"I believe I shall have to do
as Arthur has: make up some symptoms and go over to his office."

"If you do you'll get precisely the same treatment I presume Arthur
had." Mrs. Chester laughed as she spoke. "I doubt very much whether he
comes back with any headache medicine."

"But he got a moonlight ride in that beauty of a car," the guest
declared enviously. "That treatment would suit me wonderfully well,
whatever was