Miss Sinclair gave him a mocking smile.

“Would you mind my running my own little show in my own little way?” she observed sweetly.

He blew out a large smoke-ring and did not reply.  His honest, sunburned face assumed a far-away expression.  Coal Oil Johnny was thinking!

In the line of cabs and omnibuses that stood outside the I.B.&Q. depot was a Despardoux car, dazzling the eye with brass, and reflecting the passing throng in the deep, ruby, red of its highly polished surface.  Its only occupant was Miss Grace Sinclair, suffocating in a leather coat, and with her shy, pretty face well concealed behind an automobile mask.  At the side of the car, neatly pinned to one of the long rawhide baskets, was the following invitation to the public: 

Beautiful Stackport
two hours’ ride for $1
children 1/2 price

But the public who had possibly already seen beautiful Stackport for themselves, or who, maybe, were withheld by the lack of the necessary dollar—­the public, jostling past in an intermittent stream, and coy as always in the investment of its cash, disregarded the allurements of the Despardoux, and scarcely deigned even to look its way.  A few of its members, however, of a chatty and mechanical turn, were willing to volunteer a vast deal of random conversation with less than no encouragement; but the man with the dollar, the man who desired to see beautiful Stackport, the man who thirsted for a two hours’ ride—­children half-price—­was yet to come.

Grace Sinclair had waited an hour.  Her first eager expectancy had given way to a heartbreaking consciousness of failure.  She felt herself humiliated, less for herself than for her Despardoux.  She had thrown down her pearls, and the swine (true to tradition) were treating them in the time-honored manner.  At last, when hope was nearly dead within her breast, it was suddenly revived by the appearance of a rustic gentleman, who, stopping as though he had received a galvanic shock, opened his mouth as he slowly spelled out the notice on the basket.  It was plain he was from the country, for his reddish whiskers were untrimmed, his hair long and straggling, his clothes of an extraordinary and antique design; and, moreover, under his arm he carried a coal-oil box, slatted across the front, which contained a live rooster.  It was a pity that so sturdy a representative of the agricultural classes should have worn spectacles, and blue ones at that, and he had a troubled, peering, blind look that caused Grace a momentary pang.  But he seemed a jolly, hearty fellow in spite of his infirmity, and coming up to her he gave her a broad and confidential smile.

“About this burd,” he began, in a rich, friendly drawl, indicating the rooster.  “Be there any trouble about the burd coming, too?”

“Not a particle,” said Miss Sinclair.

“Hey?” said the stranger.  “Hey?”