She floated away, to give place to another lady.

“In France every summer?” she exclaimed.  “Oh, how perfectly lovely.  Don’t you think the French cars simply divine?  My husband thinks the French body is far better modelled than ours.  He saw ever so many of them.  He thought of bringing one over with him, but it costs such a lot to keep them in good order.”

“The theatres?” said another lady.  “How you must have enjoyed them.  I just love the theatres.  Last week my husband and I were at the Palatial—­it’s moving pictures—­where they have that film with the motor collision running.  It’s just wonderful.  You see the motors going at full speed, and then smash right into one another—­and all the people killed—­it’s really fine.”

“Have they all gone insane?” said Mr. Blinks to his wife after the guests had gone.

“Dreadful, isn’t it?” she assented.  “I never was so bored in my life.”

“Why, they talk of nothing else but their motor-cars!” said Blinks.  “We’ve got to get a car, I suppose, living at this distance from the town, but I’m hanged if I intend to go clean crazy over it like these people.”

And the guests as they went home talked of the Blinkses.

“I fear,” said Dr. Domb to Judge Ponderus, “that Blinks has hardly profited by his time in Europe as much as he ought to have.  He seems to have observed nothing.  I was asking him about the new Italian touring car that they are using so much in Rome.  He said he had never noticed it.  And he was there a month!”

“Is it possible?” said the Judge.  “Where were his eyes?”

All of which showed that Mr. and Mrs. Blinks were in danger of losing their friends for ever.

But it so happened that about three weeks later Blinks came home to his residence in an obvious state of excitement.  His face was flushed and he had on a silly little round cap with a glazed peak.

“Why, Clarence,” cried his wife, “whatever is the matter?”

“Matter!” he exclaimed.  “There isn’t anything the matter!  I bought a car this morning, that’s all.  Say, it’s a beauty, a regular peach, four thousand with ten off.  I ran it clean round the shed alone first time.  The chauffeur says he never saw anybody get on to the hang of it so quick.  Get on your hat and come right down to the garage.  I’ve got a man waiting there to teach you to run it.  Hurry up!”

Within a week or two after that one might see the Blinkses any morning, in fact every morning, out in their car!

“Good morning, Judge!” calls Blinks gaily as he passes, “how’s that carburettor acting?—­Good morning.  Archdeacon, is that plug trouble of yours all right again?—­Hullo, Professor, let me pick you up and ride you up to the college; oh, it’s no trouble.  What do you think of the bearings of this car?  Aren’t they just dandy?”

And so Mr. Blinks has got all his friends back again.