ly I saw an
illustration of it. I saw an automobilist slap his wife's face while
traveling thirty miles an hour."

"They will get careless," said Willie.

Mr. Todd clasped the wheel with quivering hands and braced himself
for the ordeal.

"Set her in low till her speed's up," Willie directed. "Then wiggle
her into high."

It was too mechanical for Mr. Todd. Willie translated with scornful
particularity. Under our pupil's diffident manipulation we began to
romp through the park at the rate of one mile an hour.

Willie fretted. "Shoot her some gas," said he. "Give it to her.
Don't be a-scared." He pulled down the throttle-lever himself.

My sudden roaring was mingled with frightened outcries from Todd.
"Stop! Wait a minute! Whoa! Help!"

Fortunately for my radiator, the lamp-post into which he steered me
was poorly rooted. He looked at the wreckage of the glass globe on
the grass, and declared he had taken as much of the theory of
motoring as he could absorb in one session.

"This is the only lesson I can give you free," said Willie.
"You'd better keep on while the learning's cheap."

To free education and to compulsory education Mr. Todd pronounced
himself opposed. Cramming was harmful to the student; the elective
method was the only humane one. He put off the evil hour by engaging
Willie as a private tutor for the remaining afternoons of the month.

I have met many rabbits but only one Todd. He would visit me in the
barn and look at me in awe by the half-hour. Yet I liked him; I felt
drawn toward him in sympathy, for he and I were fellow victims of
the hauteur of Mrs. Todd.

In my travels I have never encountered a glacier. When I do run
across one I shall be reminded, I am certain, of Mr. Todd's lady.

"So you are still alive?" were her cordial words as we rolled into
the yard on the first afternoon.

"Yes, my dear." His tone was almost apologetic.

"Did he drive it?" she asked Willie.

"I'll say so, ma'am."

She looked me over coldly. When she finished, I had shrunk to the
dimensions of a wheelbarrow. When Todd sized me up in the warehouse
only an hour before, I had felt as imposing as a furniture van.

"Put it in the barn," said Mrs. Todd, "before a bird carries it off."

I began to suspect that a certain little stranger was not unanimously
welcome in that household. For a moment I was reassured, but only
for a moment.

"John Quincy Burton says," she observed, "that a little old used car
lik