“‘Sure,’ he says.  Then he turns round—­he was in the bow, hangin’ on to the steerin’ wheel—­and looks me over, kind of interested, but superior.  ‘Say,’ he says, ‘I’ve been hearin’ things about you.  You’re a hero, ain’t you?’

“Durn them Orham gabblers!  Ever sence I hauled that crew of seasick summer boarders out of the drink a couple of years ago and the gov’ment gave me a medal, the minister and some more of his gang have painted out the name I was launched under and had me entered on the shippin’ list as ‘The Hero.’  I’ve licked two or three for callin’ me that, but I can’t lick a parson, and he was the one that told Billings.

“‘Oh, I don’t know!’ I answers pretty sharp.  ’Get her under way, why don’t you?’

“All he done was look me over some more and grin.

“‘A hero!  A real live gov’ment-branded hero!’ he says.  ’Ain’t scared of nothin’, I reckon—­hey?’

“I never made no answer.  There’s some things that’s too fresh to eat without salt, and I didn’t have a pickle tub handy.

“‘Hum!’ he says again, reverend-like.  ‘A sure hero; scared of nothin’!  Never rode in an auto afore, did you?’

“‘No,’ says I, peppery; ‘and I don’t see no present symptom of ridin’ in one now.  Cast off, won’t you?’

“He cast off.  That is to say, he hauled a nickel-plated marlinespike thing toward him, shoved another one away from him, took a twist on the steerin’ wheel, the gocart coughed like a horse with the heaves, started up some sort of buzz-planer underneath, and then we begun to move.

“From the time we left my shanty at South Orham till we passed the pines at Herrin’ Neck I laid back in that stuffed cockpit, feelin’ as grand and tainted as old John D. himself.  The automobile rolled along smooth but swift, and it seemed to me I had never known what easy trav’lin’ was afore.  As we rounded the bend by the pines and opened up the twelve-mile narrow white stretch of Setuckit Beach ahead of us, with the ocean on one side and the bay on t’other, I looked at my watch.  We’d come that fur in thirteen minutes.

“‘Land sakes!’ I says.  ‘This is what I call movin’ right along!’

“He turned round and sized me up again, like he was surprised.

“‘Movin’?’ says he.  ‘Movin’?  Why, pard, we’ve been settin’ down to rest!  Out our way, if a lynchin’ party didn’t move faster than we’ve done so fur, the center of attraction would die on the road of old age.  Now, my heroic college chum,’ he goes on, callin’ me out of my name, as usual, ‘will you be so condescendin’ as to indicate how we hit the trail?’

“‘Hit—­hit which?  Don’t hit nothin’, for goodness’ sake!  Goin’ the way we be, it would—­’

“‘Which way do we go?’

“’Right straight ahead.  Keep on the ocean side, ’cause there’s more hard sand there, and—­hold on!  Don’t do that!  Stop it, I tell you!’