t from lifting
mortgages.

When Peaches and I finally reached the Hawley mansion on the hill we
found there a scene of great excitement. Old and distant relations were
bustling up and down the stone steps, talking in whispers; servants with
scared faces and popping eyes were peeping around the corner of the
house, and in the roadway in front of a sobbing automobile stood Uncle
Gilbert and Aunt Miranda, made up to look like two members of the Peary
expedition at the Pole.

After the formal greetings we were soon put hep to the facts in the
case.

"You see, John," bubbled Aunt Miranda, while a pair of green goggles
danced an accompaniment on her nose, "your Uncle Gilbert loaned the
money to a man to open a garage in Hawleysville. But automobilists
never got any blowouts or punctures going through here because there
isn't a saloon in the town, so the garage failed and the man left town
in an awful hurry, and all your Uncle Gilbert got for the money he
loaned was this car. We've been four years making up our minds to buy
one and now we have one whether we want it or not."

"Fine!" I said; "going out for a spin, Uncle Gilbert?"

"Possibly," he answered, never taking his eyes off the man-killer in
front of him, which stood there trembling with anger.

"What car is it?" I inquired politely.

"It's a Seismic," Uncle Gilbert said.

"Oh, yes, of course; made by the Earthquake Brothers in
Powderville--good car for the hills, especially coming down," I
volunteered. "Know how to run it?"

"I guess so; I was always a good hand at machinery," Uncle Gilbert
answered.

"Don't you think you should have a chauffeur?" Peaches suggested.

"Chauffeur! Why?" Uncle Gilbert snapped back; "what do I want with one
of those fellows sitting around, eating me out of house and home."

Now you know why he has so much money.

"We'll be back in a little while," Aunt Miranda explained; "just make
yourselves at home, children."

Uncle Gilbert continued to eye the car for another minute, then he
turned to me and said, "Want to try it, John?"

"Nix, Uncle Gilbert," I protested; "what would the townspeople say? You
with a new motor car, afraid to run it yourself, had to send to New York
for your nephew--nix! Where's your family pride?"

"My family pride is all right," answered Uncle Gilbert; "but there's a
lot of contraptions in that machine I don't seem to recognize."

"Oh, that's all right; you're a handy little guy with machinery," I