But it was not that Ernie liked to think he was putting something over; it was simply, as the man had told me, that he liked to tinker. I was not alone in his favor. Others also benefited. He was a friend of all the world.
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.”