a clapped her hands.

"Herbert, I have it! We'll have basket picnics. I 'll take a lunch
from the house every time. And, after all, that'll be lots nicer;
don't you think so?"

"Well, that might do," acquiesced the man slowly. "Anyhow, there would
n't be any dinner checks a-coming."

August passed and September came. The Wheelers were in "M" now; they
had been for days, indeed. Even home-prepared luncheons were beyond
the Wheelers' pocketbook now, and no friend had been invited to ride
for a week past. The spoiling of two tires and a rather serious
accident to the machine had necessitated the Wheelers spending every
spare cent for repairs.

In the eyes of most of the town the Wheelers were objects of envy.
_They_ had an automobile. _They_ could ride while others must plod
along behind them on foot, blinded by their dust and sickened by their
noisome odor of gasoline.

As long as the Wheelers were "decently hospitable" about sharing their
car, the townspeople added to their envy an interested tolerance based
on a lively speculation as to when one's own turn for a ride would
come; but when a whole week went by, and not one of the many anxious
would-be guests had been invited, the interest and the tolerance fled,
leaving only an angry disdain as destructive to happiness as was the
gasoline smell of the car itself.

There were some things, however, that the townspeople did not know.
They did not know that, though the Wheelers had a motor-car, they had
almost nothing else; no new clothes, except dust coats and goggles; no
new books and magazines, except such as dealt with "the practical
upkeep and operation of a car"; no leisure, for the car must be kept
repaired and shining; no fresh vegetables to eat, for the garden had
died long ago from want of care, and they could buy only gasoline. But
they did have an automobile. This much the town knew; and there came a
day when this fact loomed large and ominous on the horizon of the
Wheelers' destiny.

On the first day of October the bank in which young Wheeler worked
closed its doors. There had been a defalcation. A large sum of money
was missing, and the long finger of suspicion pointed to Herbert
Wheeler.

Did he not sport an automobile? Was he not living far beyond his
means? Had not the Wheelers for weeks past flaunted their ill-gotten
wealth in the very eyes of the whole town? To be sure they had. The
idea, indeed, of a twelve-hundred-dollar-a-year