e swung one arm akimbo with an outward circular movement, clicked his
heels together, and straightened his shoulders until his speckled white
vest swelled.

"Hitch on, sis, and let's show Broadway we're in town!"

Gertrude took a pinch of sleeve between her gloved fingers; they fell
into step. At the door she turned and nodded over one shoulder.

"Good night, Ethyl dear," she said, a trifle too sweetly.

A huge mahogany-colored touring-car caparisoned in nickel and
upholstered in darker red panted and chugged at the Broadway curb. Mr.
Barker helped her into the front seat, swung himself behind the
steering-wheel, covered them over with a striped rug, and turned his
shining monster into the flux of Broadway.

Miss Gertrude leaned her head back against the upholstery and breathed a
deep-seated, satisfied sigh.

"This," she said, "is what I call living."

Mr. Barker grinned and let out five miles more to the hour.

"I guess this ain't got the Sixth Avenue 'L' skinned a mile!"

"Two miles," she said.

"Honest, sis, I could be arrested for what I think of the 'L.'"

"I know the furnishing of every third-floor front on the line," she
replied, with a dreary attempt at jocoseness.

"Never mind, kiddo, I've got my eye on you," he sang, quoting from a
street song of the hour.

They sped on silently, the wind singing in their ears.

"Want the shield up?"

"The what?"

"The glass front."

"No, thank you, Mr. Barker; this air is good."

"This old wagon can eat up the miles, all right, eh? She toured Egypt
fer two months and never turned an ankle."

"To think of having traveled as you have."

"Me, I'm the best little traveler you ever seen. More than once I drove
this car up a mountainside. Hold your hat--here goes, kiddo."

"I guess you'll think I'm slow, but this is the first time I've been in
an automobile, except once when I was sent for in a taxi-cab for a
private manicure."

"You think you could get used to mine, kiddo?" He nudged her elbow with
his free arm; she drew herself back against the cushions.

"The way I feel now," she said, closing her eyes, "I could ride this way
until the crack of doom."

They drew up before a flaring, electric-lighted cafe with an awning
extending from the entrance out to the curb. A footman swung open the
door, a doorman relieved Mr. Barker of his hat and light overcoat, a
head waiter steered them through an Arcadia of palms, flower-banked
tables, and small fountain