on Lise from the first, and it was she he took with, him in the front seat, indifferent to the giggling behind.  Ever since then Lise had had a motor at her disposal, and on Sundays they took long “joy rides” beyond the borders of the state.  But it must not be imagined that Mr. Whey was the proprietor of the vehicle; nor was he a chauffeur,—­her American pride would not have permitted her to keep company with a chauffeur:  he was the demonstrator for the Wizard, something of a wizard himself, as Lise had to admit when they whizzed over the tarvia of the Riverside Boulevard at fifty or sixty miles an hour with the miner cut out—­a favourite diversion of Mr. Whey’s, who did not feel he was going unless he was accompanied by a noise like that of a mitrailleuse in action.  Lise, experiencing a ravishing terror, hung on to her hat with one hand and to Mr. Wiley with the other, her code permitting this; permitting him also, occasionally, when they found themselves in tenebrous portions of Slattery’s Riverside Park, to put his arm around her waist and kiss her.  So much did Lise’s virtue allow, and no more, the result being that he existed in a tantalizing state of hope and excitement most detrimental to the nerves.

He never lost, however,—­in public at least, or before Lise’s family,—­the fine careless, jaunty air of the demonstrator, of the free-lance for whom seventy miles an hour has no terrors; the automobile, apparently, like the ship, sets a stamp upon its votaries.  No Elizabethan buccaneer swooping down on defenceless coasts ever exceeded in audacity Mr. Wiley’s invasion of quiet Fillmore Street.  He would draw up with an ear-splitting screaming of brakes in front of the clay-yellow house, and sometimes the muffler, as though unable to repress its approval of the performance, would let out a belated pop that never failed to jar the innermost being of Auermann, who had been shot at, or rather shot past, by an Italian, and knew what it was.  He hated automobiles, he hated Mr. Wiley.

“Vat you do?” he would demand, glaring.

And Mr. Wiley would laugh insolently.

“You think I done it, do you, Dutchie—­huh!”

He would saunter past, up the stairs, and into the Bumpus dining-room, often before the family had finished their evening meal.  Lise alone made him welcome, albeit demurely; but Mr. Wiley, not having sensibilities, was proof against Hannah’s coldness and Janet’s hostility.  With unerring instinct he singled out Edward as his victim.

“How’s Mr. Bumpus this evening?” he would genially inquire.

Edward invariably assured Mr. Wiley that he was well, invariably took a drink of coffee to emphasize the fact, as though the act of lifting his cup had in it some magic to ward off the contempt of his wife and elder daughter.

“Well, I’ve got it pretty straight that the Arundel’s going to run nights, starting next week,” Lise’s suitor would continue.