II
I missed him one day when I drove in and left the car. Forgan laughed at my question.
“Yep,” he said. “Gone. Got a vacation. Guy came in here—one of these movie men. Spotted Ernie, and said he wanted him for a picture. Said he looked the part. He’ll be back in a month or so. ’Less he gets the bug.”
I was interested, and a little amused at the thought of Ernie on the film; and I hoped he would come back at the end of the stipulated month, hoped he would, in fact, escape the bug.
As matters chanced, it was two weeks over the allotted month before I had occasion to take my car to the service-station. I drove in on my way to town in the morning, and Forgan slid back the doors for me, and Ernie’s familiar smile, a little more alert than of old, greeted me from the washing-floor.
“Just a wash and a polish,” I told Forgan, as I rolled past him at the door; and he nodded and said,
“Give her to Ernie.”
I maneuvered in the narrow passage and headed in to the washing-floor; but Ernie held up a warning hand, smiling and nodding.
“Cut her,” he called. “Over this side.”
And as I obeyed, wondering what it was all about, I saw that he cocked a wise eye toward the ceiling. Under his guidance, I brought the car into the position he desired, and then alighted and asked:
“What’s the idea, Ernie! Used to be any old place would do.”
Ernie chuckled.
“Look a’ there,” he admonished, and pointed upward. “There’s an arrangement I’ve fixed up. Just shut up your windows and you’ll see.”
Mine is a sedan; I obediently closed windows and doors.
“Rigged her myself,” Ernie repeated. “Just three-four lengths of pipe and a punch. Works great on a closed car.” And he yanked at the long wooden pole which opened the water-valve against the ceiling.
That which Ernie had indicated so pridefully was a rectangle of two-inch pipe, hung in such position that it was just above the roof of the car. When the valve was opened, from this pipe through numberless orifices descended a veritable water-curtain composed of many tiny streams. The water struck upon the top of the car and flowed down over front and rear and sides in sheets.
“Wets her and rinses her all at once,” Ernie pointed out to me. “Saves a lot of time, and does a sight better job. I rigged her.”
He was, as I have said, immensely proud—proud as a child. The idea was undoubtedly ingenious, and I told him so.
“I got a lot of ideas,” he assured me. “I’m figuring on them.”
I nodded.
“How’d you like the movies?” I asked.
“Great!” he said. “Say, I want to tell you—”
But I was already overdue at the office, and I made my excuses to the old man. Another time, I said, would do. He agreed, as he always agreed, and I left him at work upon the car. Forgan, at the door, winked in his direction as I passed, and asked,
“Do you make him?”
“Why?” I inquired. “What do you mean?”
“You watch the old coot,” Forgan admonished me. “He’s a new man.”