Mr. Wingate stopped and roared a greeting to Captain Hiram Baker, who was passing the open door of the waiting room.

“Hello, there, Hime!” he shouted.  “Come up in here!  What, are you too proud to speak to common folks?”

Captain Hiram entered.  “Hello!” he said.  “You look like a busy gang, for sure.  What you doin’—­seatin’ chairs?”

“Just now we’re automobilin’,” observed Captain Sol.  “Set down, Hiram.”

“Automobilin’?” repeated the new arrival, evidently puzzled.

“Sartin.  Barzilla’s takin’ us out.  Go on, Barzilla.”

Mr. Wingate smiled broadly.  “Well,” he began, “we have just about reached the part where I went autoin’.  The widow and me and Jonadab.”

“Jonadab!” shouted Stitt.  “I thought you said—­”

“I know what I said.  But we went auto ridin’ just the same.

“’Twas Henry G. Bradbury that took us out, him and his bran-new big tourin’ car.  You see, he landed to board with us the next day after Henrietta come—­this Henry G. did—­and he was so quiet and easy spoken and run his car so slow that even a pizen auto hater like Jonadab couldn’t take much offense at him.  He wa’n’t very well, he said, subject to some kind of heart attacks, and had come to the Old Home for rest.

“Him and the Cap’n had great arguments about the sins of automobilin’.  Jonadab was sot on the idee that nine folks out of ten hadn’t machine sense enough to run a car.  Bradbury, he declared that that was a fact with the majority of autos, but not with his.  ’Why, a child could run it,’ says he.  ’Look here, Cap’n:  To start it you just do this.  To stop it you do so and so.  To make her go slow you haul back on this lever.  To make her go faster you shove down this one.  And as for steerin’—­well, a man that’s handled the wheels of as many catboats as you have would simply have a picnic.  I’m in entire sympathy with your feelin’s against speeders and such—­I’d be a constable if I was in your shoes—­but this is a gentleman’s car and runs like one.’

“All Jonadab said was ‘Bosh!’ and ‘Humph!’ but he couldn’t help actin’ interested, particular as Mrs. Bassett kept him alongside of the machine and was so turrible interested herself.  And when, this partic’lar afternoon, Henry G. invites us all to go out with him for a little ’roll around,’ the widow was so tickled and insisted so that he just had to go; he didn’t dast say no.

“Somehow or ‘nother—­I ain’t just sure yet how it happened—­the seatin’ arrangements was made like this:  Jonadab and Bradbury on the front seat, and me and Henrietta in the stuffed cockpit astern.  We rolled out and purred along the road, smooth as a cat trottin’ to dinner.  No speedin’, no joltin’, no nothin’.  ’Twas a ‘gentleman’s car’; there wa’n’t no doubt about that.

“We went ’way over to Bayport and Orham and beyond.  And all the time Bradbury kept p’intin’ out the diff’rent levers to Jonadab and tellin’ him how to work ’em.  Finally, after we’d headed back, he asked Jonadab to take the wheel and steer her a spell.  Said his heart was feelin’ sort of mean and ’twould do him good to rest.