“What’s the matter?” cried his brother.

“We’re arrested!” he exclaimed.

“What!” gasped the other.  “Why, we were not going at all.”

“I know,” said Oliver; “but they’ve got us all the same.”

He must have made up his mind at one glance that the case was hopeless, for he made no attempt to put on speed, but let the young man step aboard as they reached him.

“What is it?” Oliver demanded.

“I have been sent out by the Automobile Association,” said the stranger, “to warn you that they have a trap set in the next town.  So watch out.”

And Oliver gave a gasp, and said, “Oh!  Thank you!” The young man stepped off, and they went ahead, and he lay back in his seat and shook with laughter.

“Is that common?” his brother asked, between laughs.

“It happened to me once before,” said Oliver.  “But I’d forgotten it completely.”

They proceeded very slowly; and when they came to the outskirts of the village they went at a funereal pace, while the car throbbed in protest.  In front of a country store they saw a group of loungers watching them, and Oliver said, “There’s the first part of the trap.  They have a telephone, and somewhere beyond is a man with another telephone, and beyond that a man to stretch a rope across the road.”

“What would they do with you?” asked the other.

“Haul you up before a justice of the peace, and fine you anywhere from fifty to two hundred and fifty dollars.  It’s regular highway robbery—­there are some places that boast of never levying taxes; they get all their money out of us!”

Oliver pulled out his watch.  “We’re going to be late to lunch, thanks to these delays,” he said.  He added that they were to meet at the “Hawk’s Nest,” which he said was an “automobile joint.”

Outside of the town they “hit it up” again; and half an hour later they came to a huge sign, “To the Hawk’s Nest,” and turned off.  They ran up a hill, and came suddenly out of a pine-forest into view of a hostelry, perched upon the edge of a bluff overlooking the Sound.  There was a broad yard in front, in which automobiles wheeled and sputtered, and a long shed that was lined with them.

Half a dozen attendants ran to meet them as they drew up at the steps.  They all know Oliver, and two fell to brushing his coat, and one got his cap, while the mechanic took the car to the shed.  Oliver had a tip for each of them; one of the things that Montague observed was that in New York you had to carry a pocketful of change, and scatter it about wherever you went.  They tipped the man who carried their coats and the boy who opened the door.  In the washrooms they tipped the boys who filled the basins for them and those who gave them a second brushing.

The piazzas of the inn were crowded with automobiling parties, in all sorts of strange costumes.  It seemed to Montague that most of them were flashy people—­the men had red faces and the women had loud voices; he saw one in a sky-blue coat with bright scarlet facing.  It occurred to him that if these women had not worn such large hats, they would not have needed quite such a supply of the bright-coloured veiling which they wound over the hats and tied under their chins, or left to float about in the breeze.