e, and his
clothes fitted him as clothes have no right to fit--on Cape Cod.

"That'll do, Oscar," he ordered. Then, turning to me, he said:

"See here, my man, we want to go to Bayport."

I was not his man, and wouldn't have been for something. The chauffeur
had irritated me, but he irritated me more. I didn't like him, his
looks, his clothes, and, particularly, his manner. Therefore, because
I didn't feel like answering, I showed my independence by remaining
silent.

"What's the matter?" he demanded, impatiently. "Are you deaf? I say we
want to go to Bayport."

A newspaper joke which I had recently read came to my mind. "Very well,"
I said, "you have my permission."

It was a rude thing to say, and not even original. I don't attempt to
excuse it. In fact, I was sorry as soon as I had said it. It had its
effect. The young man turned red. Then he laughed aloud.

"Well, by Jove!" he exclaimed. "What have we here? A humorist, I do
believe! Mabel, we've discovered a genuine, rural humorist. Another
David Harum, by Jove! Look at him!"

The girl in the tonneau swept aside her veil and looked, as directed.
And I looked at her. The face that I saw was sweet and refined and
delicate, a beautiful young face, the face of a lady, born and bred. All
this I saw and realized at a glance; but what I was most conscious of at
the time was the look in the dark eyes as they surveyed me from head
to foot. Indifference was there, and contemptuous amusement; she
didn't even condescend to smile, much less speak. Under that look my
self-importance shrank until the yellow dog with which I had compared
myself loomed as large as an elephant. She might have looked that way at
some curious and rather ridiculous bug, just before calling a servant to
step on it.

The young man laughed again. "Isn't it a wonder, Mabel?" he asked. "The
native wit on his native heath! Reuben--pardon me, your name is Reuben,
isn't it?--now that you've had your little joke, would you condescend to
tell us the road which we should take to reach Bayport in the shortest
time? Would you oblige us to that extent?"

The young lady smiled at this. "Victor," she said, "how idiotic you
are!"

I agreed with her. Idiot was one of the terms, the mildest, which I
should have applied to that young man. I wanted very much to remove him
from that car by what Lute would call the scruff of the neck. But most
of all, just then, I wanted to be alone, to see the last of the auto