Repeating what he had already said to Guy as to his experience with cars, Tom expressed confidence in his ability to obtain a license, if it should become worth his while.
"It wouldn't be difficult driving such as you get in the crowded parts of a city. It would be chiefly station work, over country roads."
He explained himself further. In the New Hampshire summer colony where the Ansleys had their place, the residents were turning a large country house into an inn which would be like a club, or a club which would be like an inn. It would not be open to ordinary travelers, since ordinary travelers would bring in people whom they didn't want. The guests would be their own friends, duly invited or introduced. He, Mr. Ansley, was chairman of the motor-car committee, but as he was going to Europe he was taking up the matter in advance. On general grounds he would have preferred an older man and one with more experience, but the inn-club was a new undertaking and not too well financed. More experienced men would cost more money. For the station work they could afford but eighty dollars a month, with a room in the garage, and board. Moreover, the jobs they could offer being only for the summer, the promoters hoped that a few young men and women working for their own education might take advantage of the scheme.
Eighty dollars a month, with a room to himself, even if it had only been in a stable, and board in addition, glittered before Tom's eyes like Aladdin's treasure house. Having thanked Mr. Ansley for the kind suggestion, he assured him he could give satisfaction if taken on. All the chauffeurs who had let him have a few minutes at the steering-wheel had told him that he possessed the eye, the nerve, and the quickness which make a good driver, in addition to which he knew that he did himself.
"How old are you?"
It was a question Tom always found difficult to answer. He could remember when his birthday had been on the fifth of March; but his mother had told him that that had been Gracie's birthday, and had changed his own to September. Later she had shifted to May, to a day, so she told him, when all the nurses had had their children in the Park, and the lilacs had been in bloom. He had never asked her the year, not having come to reckoning in years before she was taken from him. Though latterly he had been putting his birthday in May, he now shifted back to March, so as to make himself older.
"I'm seventeen, sir."
Mrs. Ansley spoke for the first time. "He looks more than that, doesn't he?"
Tom turned to the lady who filled a large armchair with a person suggesting the quaking, flabby consistency of cornstarch pudding. "I suppose that's because I've knocked about so much."
"The hard school does give you experience, doesn't it, but it's a cruel school."